The Iraq-Niger Uranium Controversy and the Outing of CIA Agent Valerie Plame Wilson

An examination of the events surrounding the US and British claims that Iraq tried to purchase ‘yellowcake’ uranium from Niger, and the outing of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson as part of an attempt to discredit her husband, war critic Joseph Wilson.

Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward acknowledges testifying in the Plame Wilson investigation (see November 14, 2005), and apologizes to the Post for failing to tell editors and publishers that a senior Bush administration official told him over two years ago that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA officer (see June 13, 2003). Woodward is a reporter and assistant managing editor at the Post. While speculation has been rife over which reporters knew of Plame Wilson’s identity, and which administration officials are responsible for blowing her covert status, Woodward has never admitted to being a recipient of the leaked information, and has repeatedly attacked the investigation (see December 1, 2004, July 7, 2005, July 11, 2005, July 17, 2005, July 31, 2005, and October 27, 2005). Woodward explains that he did not reveal his own involvement in the case—that Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage informed him of Plame Wilson’s CIA status—because he feared being subpoenaed by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Woodward says he was trying to protect his sources. “That’s job number one in a case like this,” he says. “I hunkered down. I’m in the habit of keeping secrets. I didn’t want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed.” Woodward told his editors about his knowledge of the case shortly after former White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice (see October 28, 2005). [Washington Post, 11/16/2005; Washington Post, 11/16/2005; Washington Post, 11/17/2005]Woodward 'Should Have Come Forward' - Executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. says Woodward “made a mistake.… [H]e still should have come forward, which he now admits. We should have had that conversation.… I’m concerned that people will get a mis-impression about Bob’s value to the newspaper and our readers because of this one instance in which he should have told us sooner.” Downie adds: “After Libby was indicted, [Woodward] noticed how his conversation with the source preceded the timing in the indictment. He’s been working on reporting around that subject ever since the indictment.” Questions of Objectivity, Honesty - Woodward’s silence about his own involvement while repeatedly denigrating the investigation causes many to question his objectivity. “It just looks really bad,” says Eric Boehlert, an author and media critic. “It looks like what people have been saying about Bob Woodward for the past five years, that he’s become a stenographer for the Bush White House” (see November 25, 2002). Journalism professor Jay Rosen says flatly, “Bob Woodward has gone wholly into access journalism.” And Robert Zelnick, chair of Boston University’s journalism department, says: “It was incumbent upon a journalist, even one of Woodward’s stature, to inform his editors.… Bob is justifiably an icon of our profession—he has earned that many times over—but in this case his judgment was erroneous.” Rem Rieder, the editor of American Journalism Review, says Woodward’s disclosure is “stunning… [it] seems awfully reminiscent of what we criticized Judith Miller for.” Miller, a reporter for the New York Times, was accused by Times executive editor Bill Keller of misleading the paper by not informing her editors that she had discussed Plame Wilson’s identity with Libby (see October 16, 2005). Rieder calls Woodward “disingenuous” for his criticism of the investigation (see July 7, 2005, July 11, 2005, July 17, 2005, and October 27, 2005) without revealing his own knowledge of the affair. Columnist and reporter Josh Marshall notes, “By becoming a partisan in the context of the leak case without revealing that he was at the center of it, really a party to it, he wasn’t being honest with his audience.” Woodward claims he only realized his conversation with Armitage might be of some significance after Libby was described in the indictment as the first Bush official to reveal Plame Wilson’s name to reporters. Armitage told Woodward of Plame Wilson’s identity weeks before Libby told Miller. Unlike Libby, Armitage did not release Woodward from his promise to protect his identity (see September 15, 2005). [Washington Post, 11/17/2005]Woodward Denies Quid Pro Quo - Some time later, a colleague will ask Woodward if he were trading information with Armitage on a friendly, perhaps less-than-professional basis. “Was this a case of being in a relationship where you traded information with a friend?” Woodward will respond sharply: “It’s not trading information. It is a subterranean narrative. What do you have? What do you know? If you start making this a criminal act, people will not speak to you.” [Vanity Fair, 4/2006]

A Washington Post analysis posits that the revelation that Post reporter Bob Woodward was the first to learn of Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA identity (see June 13, 2003 and November 14, 2005) may “provide a boost” to the legal defense of indicted White House leaker Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005). Woodward has testified that another government official leaked Plame Wilson’s name to a member of the press—himself—well before Libby’s leaks to other reporters (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Furthermore, Woodward has testified that Libby did not divulge Plame Wilson’s name to him during their two conversations in late June (see June 23, 2003 and June 27, 2003), a time period in which special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald says Libby was passing information about Plame Wilson to reporters and colleagues. The Post writes, “While neither statement appears to factually change Fitzgerald’s contention that Libby lied and impeded the leak investigation, the Libby legal team plans to use Woodward’s testimony to try to show that Libby was not obsessed with unmasking Plame and to raise questions about the prosecutor’s full understanding of events.” Former federal prosecutor John Moustakas says: “I think it’s a considerable boost to the defendant’s case. It casts doubt about whether Fitzgerald knew everything as he charged someone with very serious offenses.” But Randall Eliason, formerly the head of the public corruption unit in the Washington, DC, US Attorney’s Office, says he doubts the Woodward account will have much effect on Libby’s case, and calls such theories “defense spin.” Eliason says: “Libby was not charged with being the first to talk to a reporter, and that is not part of the indictment. Whether or not some other officials were talking to Woodward doesn’t really tell us anything about the central issue in Libby’s case: What was his state of mind and intent when he was talking to the FBI and testifying in the grand jury?… What this does suggest, though, is that the investigation is still very active. Hard to see how that is good news for [White House deputy chief of staff Karl] Rove or for anyone else in the prosecutor’s cross hairs.” The Libby defense team is calling Woodward’s testimony a “bombshell” with the potential to derail Fitzgerald’s case. Rove’s defense lawyers add that Woodward’s testimony benefits their client also. A source the Post calls “close to Rove” says: “It definitely raises the plausibility of Karl Rove’s simple and honest lapses of memory, because it shows that there were other people discussing the matter in what Mr. Woodward described as very offhanded, casual way. Let’s face it, we don’t all remember every conversation we have about significant issues, much less those about those that are less significant.” [Washington Post, 11/17/2005] Criminal defense lawyer Jeralyn Merritt, writing for the progressive blog TalkLeft, notes: “Fitzgerald did not say that Libby was the first administration official to disclose Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity to a reporter. He said Libby was the first person known to the government to have disclosed her identity. There’s a sea of difference between the two.… I think it’s perfectly clear what Fitzgerald meant in light of his statement at the beginning of the conference—Libby was the first person the investigation uncovered who disclosed the information to a reporter. I see nothing in Woodward’s revelations that affect the charges against Libby. He’s not charged with leaking Plame Wilson’s identity or with engaging in a vendetta against Wilson, although some have said he did both. He’s charged with lying to Fitzgerald’s investigators and the grand jury about what he told reporters and when and what reporters told him—and obstructing justice.” [Jeralyn Merritt, 11/16/2005]

Lawyers David Rivkin and Lee Casey demand that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald drop his prosecution of former White House official Lewis Libby. In a Washington Times editorial, Rivkin and Casey write that, because Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward has admitted to being the recipient of leaked information about CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson before Libby leaked her covert identity (see November 14, 2005), it is possible that Woodward himself told Libby of Plame Wilson’s CIA status—it is possible that Libby merely “misremembered” the reporter who told him as NBC’s Tim Russert, when it was likely Woodward (see July 10 or 11, 2003). Moreover, the lawyers assert, the likelihood of a jury actually convicting Libby of perjury and obstruction of justice (see October 28, 2005) is unlikely in light of Woodward’s revelation and the “reasonable doubt” they say Woodward’s recent testimony raises. Rivkin and Casey echo previous assertions that the CIA did not bother to ensure the safety of Plame Wilson’s covert status (see November 3, 2005), in effect blaming the agency for her identity being exposed. [Washington Times, 11/17/2005] Rivkin and Casey, in a previous Washington Times editorial, called the exposure of Plame Wilson a “public service” (see November 4, 2005).

Conservative columnist Tucker Carlson, writing for MSNBC, claims that the exposure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA identity did not harm US national security, and offers $100 “to the first person who can prove otherwise” (see Before September 16, 2003, October 3, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, October 23-24, 2003, October 29, 2005, and February 13, 2006). Carlson goes on to note that former White House official Lewis Libby was not the first person to leak Plame Wilson’s identity to the press, as recent revelations from the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward show that Woodward knew of Plame Wilson’s CIA status well before Libby leaked it to New York Times reporter Judith Miller (see November 14, 2005). Carlson says in light of these two facts that Libby never should have been charged with anything (see October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, and March 24, 2004), and special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald should apologize to Libby. Moreover, Carlson writes, Fitzgerald is “the enemy” of journalists and the public’s right to know; because of Fitzgerald’s subpoenas to reporters, both reporters and government sources are “spooked.… Thanks to Fitzgerald, there will be fewer leaks from the executive branch in years to come. Fewer leaks mean less information, and therefore a less informed public. We all lose.” [MSNBC, 11/17/2005] Carlson does not inform his readers of his family’s close ties to the Libby defense fund (see February 28, 2006).

The conservative Washington Times demands that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald drop his prosecution of former White House official Lewis Libby. The editorial joins a guest editorial from two Washington lawyers on the Times’s editorial page making similar demands (see November 17, 2005). As in the lawyers’ op-ed, the Times highlights recent testimony by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward that he was told of Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA status before Libby leaked it to the press (see November 14, 2005). Moreover, the Times asserts that Woodward has stated he may have told Libby about Plame Wilson. Together, Woodward’s revelations have “bl[own] a gigantic hole in Patrick Fitzgerald’s recently unveiled indictment of the vice president’s former chief of staff,” the Times concludes. Like the lawyers, the Times’s editorial writers say that Libby merely misremembered the identity of the reporter who told him of Plame Wilson’s identity, confusing Woodward with NBC’s Tim Russert (see July 10 or 11, 2003). And again echoing the lawyers, the Times’s editorial writers argue that “it is at least doubtful whether a reasonable jury would find Mr. Libby guilty.” Therefore, the editorial concludes, “Mr. Fitzgerald should do the right thing and promptly dismiss the indictment of Scooter Libby.” [Washington Times, 11/17/2005]

Neoconservative John Podhoretz adds his voice to the recent demands from conservatives for special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to drop his prosecution of former White House official Lewis Libby (see November 10, 2005, November 17, 2005, November 17, 2005, and November 17, 2005). Podhoretz calls Fitzgerald’s investigation an “inquisition,” and, like many of his fellow commentators, points to the recent revelation that reporter Bob Woodward received leaked information about Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA status before Libby leaked it to a different reporter (see November 14, 2005). In his indictment of Libby (see October 28, 2005), Fitzgerald said that Libby was “the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter” when he told former New York Times reporter Judith Miller about Plame Wilson (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Fitzgerald did not know then that another, as-yet-unnamed government official (later revealed to be former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage—see June 13, 2003) had “outed” Plame Wilson before Libby. Therefore, Podhoretz concludes, there is no evidence that Libby knowingly lied to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and to Fitzgerald’s grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) in denying his leaks of Plame Wilson’s identity. “How can it be fair to convict Libby when even the prosecutor himself can’t get the story straight?” Podhoretz asks. [New York Post, 11/18/2005]

Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz profiles Bob Woodward, the Post reporter and managing editor who has gone from trailblazing investigative reporter during the Watergate days (see June 15, 1974) to protecting Bush administration sources and lambasting the Plame Wilson investigation while concealing his own involvement as a leak recipient (see November 15-17, 2005 and November 16-17, 2005). “Three decades older and millions of dollars richer, Woodward still has plenty of secret sources, but they work in the highest reaches of the Bush administration,” Kurtz writes. “They are molding history rather than revealing Watergate-style corruption. Some have even used the press to strike back against a critic of their war by revealing the identity of a CIA operative. And the public is no longer as enamored of reporters and their unnamed informants.… In today’s polarized political atmosphere, Woodward’s journalistic methods have been assailed by those who view him as dependent on the Bush inner circle for the narratives that drive his bestsellers.” Kurtz quotes Post executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr. as saying that Woodward “has gone from being someone who was on the outside to someone who has such access, who’s famous, who’s recognized on the street, who’s treated by celebrities and very high officials as an equal.… [H]is access has produced a lot of information about the inner workings of this White House, the Clinton White House, the first Bush administration, and documents, actual documents, that nobody else has gotten.” Downie says that Woodward has admitted to withholding newsworthy information for his books, and has promised to write in a more timely fashion for the Post when he receives such information. But Kurtz then quotes journalism professor Jay Rosen: “Woodward for so long was a symbol of adversarial journalism because of the Watergate legend. But he really has become an access journalist, someone who’s an insider.” David Gergen, a Harvard professor and editor at US News and World Report, says of Woodward: “I do think that Bob’s politics have changed some over the years. He’s much more sympathetic to the establishment, especially the Republican establishment.” Mary Matalin, a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, says: “There is a really deep respect for his work, and a deep desire by [President Bush] to have a contemporaneous, historically accurate account. The president rightly believed that Woodward, for good and ill, warts and all, would chronicle what happened. It’s in the White House’s interest to have a neutral source writing the history of the way Bush makes decisions. That’s why the White House gives him access.” [Washington Post, 11/28/2005] Author and media critic Frank Rich will note that “some of what Woodward wrote was ‘in the White House’s interest’ had to be the understatement of the year. Dubious cherry-picked intelligence from the Feith-WHIG conveyor belt (see August 2002) ended up in Plan of Attack (see Summer 2003) before that information was declassified.… No wonder Matalin thought Woodward had done ‘an extraordinary job.’ The WHIG gang had spun him silly.” [Rich, 2006, pp. 192]

Author and Vanity Fair reporter Craig Unger interviews Michael Ledeen regarding the false claims that Iraq attempted to purchase massive amounts of uranium from Niger (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, Late September 2001-Early October 2001, October 15, 2001, December 2001, February 5, 2002, February 12, 2002, October 9, 2002, October 15, 2002, January 2003, February 17, 2003, March 7, 2003, March 8, 2003, and 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003). Ledeen, a prominent neoconservative who holds the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, is well known to have extensive ties to the Italian intelligence community and for his relationship with discredited Iranian arms merchant Manucher Ghorbanifar (see 1981 and December 9, 2001). Ledeen denies any involvement in promulgating the fraudulent uranium allegations. “I’m tired of being described as someone who likes fascism and is a warmonger,” he says. (Ledeen has written books and articles praising Italy’s Benito Mussolini, and wrote numerous articles in the run-up to the Iraq invasion calling for the US to forcibly overthrow numerous Middle Eastern governments along with Iraq’s—see September 20, 2001, December 7, 2001, and August 6, 2002.) “I think it’s obvious I have no clout in the administration. I haven’t had a role. I don’t have a role.” He barely knows White House political adviser Karl Rove, he says, and has “no professional relationship with any agency of the federal government during the Bush administration. That includes the Pentagon.” The facts contradict Ledeen’s assertions. Since before Bush’s inauguration, Rove has invited Ledeen to funnel ideas to the White House (see After November 2000). Former Pentagon analyst Karen Kwiatkowski says Ledeen “was in and out of [the Pentagon] all the time.” Ledeen is very close to David Wurmser, who held key posts in the Pentagon and State Department before becoming the chief Middle East adviser for Vice President Dick Cheney. Ledeen also has close ties to National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Of course, none of this proves or disproves his connections, if any, to the Iraq-Niger fabrications. [Unger, 2007, pp. 231]

Viveca Novak. [Source: Annenberg Public Policy Center]The New York Times learns that a conversation between the lawyer for White House official Karl Rove and Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak led Rove to change his testimony to the grand jury investigating the Plame Wilson identity leak (see October 14, 2005). Novak told Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, that her colleague at Time, Matthew Cooper, had possibly learned of Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA status from Rove (see March 1, 2004). Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has summoned Novak to testify before his grand jury about the Luskin conversation. Sources say Fitzgerald is still determining whether Rove has been truthful and forthcoming in his multiple testimonies before the jury, and whether he altered his testimony after learning that Cooper might identify him as a source (see October 15, 2004). Previously, Rove testified that he only spoke to columnist Robert Novak (no relation to Viveca Novak) about Plame Wilson’s secret CIA identity (see July 8, 2003), and failed to disclose his similar leak to Cooper (see 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003). Rove testified that he simply forgot about his conversation with Cooper during previous testimony. [Washington Post, 11/29/2005; New York Times, 12/2/2005] Progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters notes that Novak never disclosed her conversation with Luskin to Fitzgerald, and failed to inform her readers of her contacts and her knowledge of the case in several articles she wrote about the investigation subsequent to her conversation with Luskin. Media Matters also notes that Novak “provid[ed] Luskin with information that might prove crucial to Rove’s defense in the case.… Novak, an experienced journalist working for a prestigious publication, disclosed to Rove’s lawyer information that she did not give to her readers and that Cooper would zealously try to withhold for more than a year on the basis of the purportedly sacrosanct anonymity agreement between a reporter and a source.… Novak may have affirmatively helped Rove—a source the magazine covers and will continue to cover—beat a perjury rap, not by exonerating him through a story in the course of her job, but by providing his lawyer with information in a private conversation.… Novak apparently felt free to disclose to Rove’s lawyer that Cooper might be compelled to testify before a grand jury about the conversation between Cooper and Rove, but she did not accord Time readers the same privilege.” [Media Matters, 12/2/2005] The Washington Post notes that Luskin and Novak are friends. [Washington Post, 11/29/2005]

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald meets for almost three hours with the grand jury investigating the Plame Wilson identity leak; observers believe Fitzgerald is still considering whether to bring charges against White House political strategist Karl Rove. This grand jury is newly empaneled; the first grand jury, after spending almost two years investigating the leak, was dismissed after bringing an indictment against former White House official Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005). Its term expired that same day. [Associated Press, 12/7/2005; Washington Post, 7/3/2007]

Time reporter Viveca Novak testifies under oath in the Plame Wilson leak investigation, in an interview at her lawyer Hank Schuelke’s office. Novak has already spoken with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (see November 10, 2005) about her conversations with Robert Luskin, the lawyer for White House aide Karl Rove (see March 1, 2004), but did not inform her editors of either her conversations with Luskin or her discussion with Fitzgerald until after Fitzgerald asked her to testify under oath. In late November, she informed Time bureau chief Jim Carney, who informed managing editor Jim Kelly. As Novak will later write, “Nobody was happy about it, least of all me.” Before her testimony, various leaks about her involvement in the investigation began appearing in the press, making her “feel physically ill.” Novak also rechecked her notes and found that she had misinformed Fitzgerald about the date of her conversation with Luskin concerning Rove: it was most likely March 1, 2004 and not May 2004. Novak will later write that the second interview is “more focused” than the first one, and her responses are, if anything, even more confused and vague than during her first interview. “I was mortified about how little I could recall of what occurred when,” she will later write. Fitzgerald again focuses on her exchanges with Luskin, sticking to their previous agreement “not to wander with his questions.” [Associated Press, 12/8/2005; Time, 12/11/2005] The leaks about Novak apparently began with Luskin, who told Fitzgerald that Novak inadvertently alerted him last year that her colleague, Matthew Cooper, would have to testify that Rove was his source for an article about Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, Joseph Wilson (see July 17, 2003). Investigative reporter Jason Leopold writes that it seems Luskin is trying to derail a potential criminal indictment of Rove (see December 7, 2005). [CounterPunch, 12/9/2005]

The New York Sun exhorts its readers to contribute to the Lewis Libby defense fund (see After October 28, 2005). The Sun, in an op-ed, calls the Libby Legal Defense Fund “a distinguished, bipartisan group” formed to help pay the legal expenses for Libby, whom the Sun says “is the target of a witch hunt by a special counsel,” Patrick Fitzgerald. The government should be paying for Libby’s legal expenses, the editorial states: “After all, he is being prosecuted for carrying out his official duties, defending the president’s agenda on the war in Iraq against an effort to undermine it by the president’s political and ideological rivals. There is no suggestion whatsoever by the prosecutor that Mr. Libby sought to use his political office for private gain.” The editorial goes on to call the case against Libby “frivolous,” and says Americans of all political stripes should consider donating to Libby’s defense, whether they be “a neoconservative who believes that the Iraq war spread freedom… a defender of the freedom of the press who believes that government officials in America should be free to talk to the press without fear of being thrown in prison by a prosecutor… a Clinton loyalist who remembers how special prosecutors were used against the previous administration… a believer in a strong presidency who thinks the whole idea of criminalizing policy differences has a tendency to sap the boldness of the president [, or] a believer in the underdog and want Mr. Libby to have a fair fight against the special prosecutor.” [New York Sun, 12/8/2005]

Investigative reporter Jason Leopold notes that, according to his sources, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald does not believe the story that White House political strategist Karl Rove and his lawyer, Robert Luskin, are telling about the fortuitous discovery of an internal e-mail that led Rove to admit that he told Time reporter Matthew Cooper about Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity. In March 2004, Time reporter Viveca Novak told Luskin that she was sure Rove outed Plame Wilson to Cooper; that information prompted Luskin to have Rove search the White House e-mail archives for information bearing out Novak’s assertion, and Rove found an e-mail he had sent to Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley about his conversation with Hadley (see March 1, 2004). Novak testified yesterday about her conversation with Luskin (see December 8, 2005). “Fitzgerald is said to be suspicious about the chain of events that led up to the discovery of the email,” Leopold writes. “Moreover, he is said to be convinced that Rove had changed his story once it became clear that Cooper would be compelled to testify about the source—Rove—who revealed Plame Wilson’s CIA status to him.” Luskin has said that his client, Rove, initially forgot about his conversation with Cooper in his first testimonies before Fitzgerald’s grand jury, and claimed he was not Cooper’s source (see October 8, 2003). According to Leopold’s sources, some of which are inside the Fitzgerald team, Fitzgerald does not find Rove and Luskin’s assertions “believable.” [CounterPunch, 12/9/2005]

Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak writes an article discussing her recent testimony to the grand jury investigating the Plame Wilson identity leak. Novak was asked to testify (see December 2, 2005) after special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald learned of her conversation with Robert Luskin, the lawyer for White House official Karl Rove. Rove is a primary focus of the leak investigation. In 2004, Novak alerted Luskin that her colleague, Matthew Cooper, had learned of Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA identity from Rove (see March 1, 2004). That information prompted Luskin to have Rove “alter” his testimony before Fitzgerald’s grand jury, and admit that he had leaked Plame Wilson’s identity to Cooper (see October 14, 2005). Novak defends her conversation with Luskin, admitting that she and Luskin had been casual friends since 1996, and she had used him as a source for several years. Luskin, Novak recalls, informed her in late October 2005 that he had told Fitzgerald of their 2004 conversation, and that Fitzgerald might want to subpoena her to testify. Novak writes that she never considered refusing to testify, since there was no need to try to protect Luskin as a source, and Luskin wanted her to testify anyway. Novak hired a lawyer but did not inform her editors at Time of the upcoming testimony. She spoke with Fitzgerald on November 10 (see November 10, 2005) and testified a month later (see December 8, 2005). Novak notes that Luskin is displeased about her decision to write about their conversation, but, she writes, “I feel that he violated any understanding to keep our talk confidential by unilaterally going to Fitzgerald and telling him what was said. And, of course, anyone who testifies under oath for a grand jury (my sworn statement will be presented to the grand jury by Fitzgerald) is free to discuss that testimony afterward.” After this article is published in Time, the magazine announces, “By mutual agreement, Viveca Novak is currently on a leave of absence.” [Time, 12/11/2005]

The law firm of Jones Day submits the first classified document request to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald on behalf of its client, Lewis Libby. The letter reads in part, “The documents requested include not only documents in the possession, custody, or control of your office, but also (a) documents in the possession, custody, or control of any agency allied with the prosecution, including without limitation the FBI, CIA, and the Office of the Vice President (‘OVP’), and (b) all other documents of which your office has knowledge and to which it has access.” The request is for, among other documents, Libby’s White House notes from May 2003 through March 2004; all documents pertaining to Libby’s morning intelligence briefings from May 2003 through March 2004, and including all Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs); any CIA damage assessment performed in light of the Plame Wilson identity leak; and any documents pertaining to Valerie Plame Wilson’s status as a clandestine CIA official. [Letter to Patrick Fitzgerald from Jones Day re United States v. I. Lewis Libby, 12/14/2005, pp. 2-5 ] None of the lawyers for either the prosecution or the defense are aware of an in-house CIA assessment of the “severe” damage caused by the leak (see Before September 16, 2003).

Conservative columnist Robert Novak, who first outed Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA agent (see July 14, 2003), writes that he believes President Bush knows which administration official or officials leaked Plame Wilson’s identity to the press. If Novak is correct, this would implicate Bush in a potential crime. [Washington Post, 7/3/2007]

Eve Burton, the general counsel for the Hearst Corporation, says the success of the subpoenas and compelled testimony levied against reporters in the Plame Wilson identity leak investigation (see August 7, 2004, August 9, 2004, August 9, 2004, August 12, 2004 and After, August 24, 2004, September 13, 2004, September 15, 2004, October 7, 2004, October 13, 2004, December 2004, February 15, 2005, June 27, 2005, July 1, 2005, July 6, 2005, July 6, 2005, July 11, 2005, July 13, 2005, September 15, 2005, September 29, 2005, September 30, 2005, October 7, 2005, October 12, 2005, November 14, 2005, November 16-17, 2005, and January 20, 2006) has been chilling for reporters. She calls recent developments “troubling,” and continues, “From July to December [2005] we had 42 subpoenas, eight times the number we got in the same six-month period last year.” The language in all the court cases and filings “either invoke[s] the Plame case or they say that now all the rules have changed.” Burton blames the Bush Justice Department in part for the trend, saying: “It is clearly a political decision coming out of the Bush Justice Department to go after the press in this country. In our 42 subpoenas, they will come after anything and everything—B roll at the TV stations, for example. Basic general assignment reporting. A call will come in from the government: ‘I understand you took footage of Joe Blow!’ And the reporter at a station, usually inexperienced, will say, ‘No, we did not take any footage.’ Then we will end up having fights in court with the prosecutor about what constitutes a waiver.” The subpoenas at Hearst, Burton says, involve broadcast stations and newspapers all over the country. “Typically, it is non-published and confidential material” being subpoenaed, she says. “This is the danger of making the press the investigative arm for the government.” Burton and Hearst are fighting every subpoena, no matter how seemingly minor. Burton does not blame special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald as much as she blames the increasing lackadaisical attitude of the press itself. “The media has taken its responsibility to fight these subpoenas too loosely,” she says. “When we were fighting every single battle, we were doing better. Then we went through a time when we started to make deals. When you start making deals, you empower people to come after you. It is as simple as that.” [Vanity Fair, 4/2006]

Former White House official Lewis Libby, facing criminal charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for his involvement in the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak (see October 28, 2005), joins the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank that focuses on foreign policy and national security. Libby is a senior fellow whose focus will be issues related to terrorism and Asia, and will also advise the institute on strategic planning. Other prominent conservatives who are members of the Hudson Institute are former Reagan administration Solicitor General Robert Bork (see October 19-20, 1973 and July 1-October 23, 1987), and former National Security Agency Director William Odom (see September 16, 2004). Libby will be paid a salary commensurate with his White House remuneration of $160,000. [Washington Post, 1/6/2006]

After a long and difficult struggle with herself, senior CIA case officer and outed covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson (see July 14, 2003) resigns from the agency. In 2007, she will reflect that for 20 years, “I had loved what I was doing, but I could no longer continue to do the undercover work for which I had been trained. My career had been done in by stupidity and political payback, and that made me angry. I would… resign—sadly, but on my terms.” Plame Wilson’s boss “literally beg[s]” her “to reconsider her decision, and despite my respect for her and my belief in the mission, I was not tempted for a moment. Leaving was the right choice for me and my family. I was ready to close this chapter in my life.” Plame Wilson will recall: “The young officers whom I had supervised were particularly outraged at what had happened and at the increasing politicization of intelligence that my case exemplified. Like me, they had entered the agency filled with energy, hope, and patriotism, only to emerge a few years later with a realization of their own vulnerabilities, the danger of politicians meddling in intelligence matters, and a clearer sense of the moral ambiguity that characterizes even the most honorable institutions.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 239-240, 389]

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald responds to a classified document request submitted by the Lewis Libby defense team (see December 14, 2005). Fitzgerald disputes lawyer John Cline’s characterization of the Office of Special Counsel as “allied with… the FBI, CIA, and the Office of the Vice President,” and notes that “we are not aligned with the various delineated government agencies other than the” FBI. Fitzgerald writes that his office will provide whatever requested documents it can, but many of the classified documents requested are not in its possession, and he doubts his office will ever be provided with many of them, particularly the extremely sensitive Presidential Daily Briefs. Others of the documents, such as some of Libby’s notes from his time in the Office of the Vice President, have not yet been provided; Fitzgerald says that once his office receives the documents, he will provide them to Libby’s lawyers. [Office of Special Counsel, 1/9/2006 ]

Controversial neoconservative Michael Ledeen, a consultant for the Bush Defense Department, confirms that he was a contributor to the Italian magazine Panorama. A Panorama reporter, Elisabetta Burba, was one of the first to come across forged documents that purported to prove Iraq had attempted to obtain weapons-grade uranium from Niger (see September 12, 2002 and Afternoon October 7, 2002). Ledeen is widely suspected of playing a role in channeling those forged documents to the CIA (see October 18, 2001, December 9, 2001, and April 3, 2005), though he has always denied doing so. Ledeen confirms that “several years ago” he was a “twice a month” contributor to Panorama, but refuses to give further details. He also denies, again, any involvement in the Niger documents: “I’ve said repeatedly, I have no involvement of any sort with the Niger story, and I have no knowledge of it aside from what has appeared in the press,” he writes. “I have not discussed it with any government person in any country.” Reporter Larisa Alexandrovna notes that Ledeen wrote for Panorama during the time that the magazine received the forgeries from an Italian intelligence peddler, and sent them from the US Embassy in Rome via backchannels to the US State Department. Around that same time, Ledeen also allegedly facilitated an unusual meeting between the head of Italy’s military intelligence agency and Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser in the Bush administration
(see September 9, 2002). Hadley has denied discussing anything about uranium during that meeting. [Raw Story, 1/17/2006]

Lawyers for former vice-presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby, charged with perjury and obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak case (see December 30, 2003 and January 16-23, 2007), say they will subpoena a number of journalists and news organizations. The lawyers say the journalists and news organizations’ notes and records will assist in defending their client. [Wall Street Journal, 1/21/2006; Washington Post, 7/3/2007] The defense also intends to ask for a large number of government documents, many of them classified. They do not say what they intend to ask for, or who they intend to subpoena, but they do alert Judge Reggie Walton that the trial could be significantly delayed during the subpoena and discovery processes. The prosecution is expected to resist some of Libby’s lawyers’ requests. [New York Times, 1/21/2006; Wall Street Journal, 1/21/2006] Criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt, writing for the progressive blog TalkLeft, writes: “The government wants the case to be about whether Libby lied. The defense wants to complicate the case by asking for everything, from reporters’ notes to government agency records, not just about Libby but about Valerie Plame [Wilson] and especially, what others knew about her and from whom and when and where did they learn it. The defense will try to think of everything the government doesn’t want to turn over and it will ask for that. The media companies will battle Libby’s subpoenas, and Libby’s team is probably hoping that the trial court will rule in his favor, which in turn will result in an appeal by the media groups and a long delay of his trial.” [Jeralyn Merritt, 1/20/2006]

In a letter to Lewis Libby’s defense lawyers, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald says that Libby passed classified information from the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (NIE—see October 1, 2002) to reporters. According to Fitzgerald, Libby did so at the behest of his then-boss, Vice President Dick Cheney. Fitzgerald says the information comes from secret grand jury testimony given by Libby (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004). He says Libby testified that he caused at least one other government official to discuss an intelligence estimate with reporters in July 2003. “We also note that it is our understanding that Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors,” Fitzgerald writes. Libby’s lawyer William Jeffress says that regardless of what evidence Fitzgerald may or may not have, his client has no intention of blaming Cheney or other senior White House officials for his actions. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) says Cheney should take responsibility if he indeed authorized Libby to share classified information with reporters. “These charges, if true, represent a new low in the already sordid case of partisan interests being placed above national security,” Kennedy says. “The vice president’s vindictiveness in defending the misguided war in Iraq is obvious. If he used classified information to defend it, he should be prepared to take full responsibility.” Fitzgerald says he intends to use Libby’s grand jury testimony to support evidence pertaining to Libby’s meeting with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller (see 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003). [Office of Special Counsel, 1/23/2006 ; Associated Press, 2/10/2006] The press learns of Libby’s testimony days later (see February 2, 2006).

The Lewis Libby defense team files a request to use classified government material as part of Libby’s defense. Legal observers say the Libby request could “bog down” the case for months. The Associated Press reports that the request “puts the Libby case on a dual track: one public, the other secret that often can delay criminal cases from going to trial.” The contents of the filing remain secret, but Libby’s lawyers have implied that they want to reveal the nature of CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson’s work as a CIA operative (see Fall 1985, Fall 1989, Fall 1992 - 1996, and April 2001 and After). Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald opposes the idea that some of the classified documents would be provided (see January 23, 2006). Fitzgerald has already turned over 850 pages of classified information to Libby’s defense lawyers, and is working to declassify more information. [Associated Press, 1/23/2006]

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald responds again to the classified document request from the Lewis Libby defense team (see December 14, 2005, January 9, 2006, and January 23, 2006). Fitzgerald reiterates that his office cannot provide some of the classified White House documents that Libby’s lawyers are requesting, and writes that many of the requested materials have no bearing on the perjury and obstruction charges Libby is facing. He also tells the lawyers that his office may not be able to provide some of the documents requested from the Office of the Vice President because that office seems not to have kept them: “We advise you that we have learned that not all e-mail of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system.” [Office of Special Counsel, 1/9/2006 ]

Lewis Libby’s defense team files a motion with the US District Court to compel the discovery of documents and materials relating to a number of journalists in Libby’s upcoming trial (see January 20, 2006). The filing includes a request for the prosecution to turn over all the information it obtained from reporters about their confidential conversations with Bush administration sources in the course of its investigation. “There can be no information more material to the defense of a perjury case than information tending to show that the alleged false statements are, in fact, true or that they could be the result of mistake or confusion,” the lawyers argue. “Libby is entitled to know what the government knows.” After complaining that the prosecution has refused to provide numerous classified documents the defense has requested (see January 23, 2006), and reiterating its requests for a huge number of White House and CIA documents (see December 14, 2005), the motion asks that documents relating to NBC bureau chief Tim Russert (see July 10 or 11, 2003), Time reporter Matthew Cooper (see 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003 and 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003), New York Times reporter Judith Miller (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003), and Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward (see November 14, 2005) be released to the defense. The defense also indicates its interest in information about NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and the Post’s Walter Pincus. [Washington Post, 1/27/2006; New York Times, 1/27/2006; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 1/26/2009 ] Washington lawyer Charles Tobin says that the Libby defense move was expected, and is a result of the prosecution’s aggressive insistence on deposing journalists and forcing them to reveal confidential sources. “I think we could have expected that, when the prosecutor went on a fishing expedition, that the fish he caught would want to look back in the pail,” Tobin says. “The more this case develops, the further we seem to be getting from the core issues of the indictment—and more into the business of journalism and how news gets put out in this town.” [Washington Post, 1/27/2006]

Lewis Libby’s lawyers reveal a detailed outline of their planned defense strategy to combat government charges that their client committed perjury and obstructed justice (see October 28, 2005). Libby’s lawyers intend to offer what some call a “memory defense,” a claim that Libby did not deliberately lie to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) or to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), but instead was a victim of his own confusion and faulty memory, a condition brought on by his preoccupation with national security matters. Libby’s lawyers have asked for a huge number of highly classified documents (see January 23, 2006 and January 31, 2006) to support his claim of being overworked due to his involvement in the administration’s battle against terrorism and other threats against the nation. The documents, the lawyers claim in a court filing, “are material to establishing that any misstatements he may have made were the result of confusion, mistake, and faulty memory resulting from his immersion in other, more significant matters, rather than deliberate lies.” Libby’s conversations with reporters during the summer of 2003 about CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, July 10 or 11, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003) “occurred in the midst of an unending torrent of meetings, briefings, and discussions of far more urgent and sensitive issues, including for example, the detection and prevention of terrorist attacks against the United States,” bringing stability to Iraq, and the spread of nuclear weapons in North Korea and Iran. Libby was “inundated from early in the morning until late at night with the most sensitive national security issues this country faces,” his lawyers say, and his faulty memory about what he did and did not tell reporters about Plame Wilson is insignificant compared to the other matters that were on his mind. [New York Times, 2/1/2006]

Lewis Libby’s defense team reiterates its demand for the disclosure of 10 months’ worth of Presidential Daily Briefings, or PDBs, some of the most highly classified of government documents (see December 14, 2005, January 9, 2006, and January 23, 2006). Defense lawyer John Cline has said he wants the information in part to compensate for what he says is Libby’s imperfect recollection of conversations he had with Vice President Dick Cheney and other government officials regarding CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson (see October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, and March 24, 2004). In documents filed with the court, Libby’s lawyers argue, “Mr. Libby will show that, in the constant rush of more pressing matters, any errors he made in FBI interviews or grand jury testimony, months after the conversations, were the result of confusion, mistake, faulty memory, rather than a willful intent to deceive” (see January 31, 2006). Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has already informed Cline that his office has only “received a very discrete amount of material relating to PDBs” and “never requested copies of PDBs” themselves, in part because “they are extraordinarily sensitive documents which are usually highly classified.” Furthermore, Fitzgerald wrote that only a relatively small number of the PDB information he has received refers to Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). Cline is considered an expert in using “graymail” techniques—demanding the broad release of classified documents from the government, and, when those requests are denied, demanding dismissal of charges against his client. He was successful at having the most serious charges dismissed against an earlier client, former Colonel Oliver North, in the Iran-Contra trials (see May-June, 1989). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 1/31/2006 ; National Journal, 2/6/2006]

According to sources with firsthand knowledge, alleged perjurer Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005), the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, has given indications of the nature of his defense in his upcoming trial (see January 16-23, 2007). Libby will tell the court that he was authorized by Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials to leak classified information to reporters to build public support for the Iraq invasion and rebut criticism of the war. Prosecutors believe that other White House officials involved in authorizing the leak of classified information may include former Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and White House political strategist Karl Rove. Libby has already made this claim to the grand jury investigating the Plame Wilson identity leak (see March 24, 2004). As he told the grand jury, Libby will claim that he was authorized to leak classified information to rebut claims from former ambassador Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson’s husband, that the Bush administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make a public case for war. Libby allegedly outed Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent, as part of the White House’s effort to discredit Wilson. Libby is not charged with the crime of revealing a covert CIA agent, but some of the perjury charges center on his denials of outing Plame Wilson to the FBI and to the grand jury. Libby has admitted revealing Plame Wilson’s identity to reporter Judith Miller (see August 6, 2005); he also revealed classified information to Miller. Risk of Implicating Cheney - Law professor Dan Richman, a former federal prosecutor, says it is surprising that Libby would use such a defense strategy. “One certainly would not expect Libby, as part of his defense, to claim some sort of clear authorization from Cheney where none existed, because that would clearly risk the government’s calling Cheney to rebut that claim.” Reporter Murray Waas writes that Libby’s defense strategy would further implicate Cheney in the White House’s efforts to discredit and besmirch Wilson’s credibility (see October 1, 2003), and link him to the leaks of classified information and Plame Wilson’s CIA identity. It is already established that Libby learned of Plame Wilson’s CIA status from Cheney and at least three other government officials (see 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003 and (June 12, 2003)). Similarities to North's Iran-Contra Defense Strategy - Waas compares Libby’s defense strategy to that of former Colonel Oliver North, charged with a variety of crimes arising from the Iran-Contra scandal (see February 1989). Libby’s defense team includes John Cline, who represented North during his trial. Critics call Cline a “graymail” specialist, who demands the government disclose classified information during a trial, and uses potential refusals to ask for dismissal of charges. Cline won the dismissal of many of the most serious charges against North when Reagan administration officials refused to declassify documents he said were necessary for North’s defense. The special counsel for the Iran-Contra investigation, Lawrence Walsh, believed that Reagan officials refused to declassify the documents because they were sympathetic to North, and trying North on the dismissed charges would have exposed further crimes committed by more senior Reagan officials. It is likely that Cline is using a similar strategy with Libby, according to Waas. Cline has already demanded the disclosure of 10 months’ worth of Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs), some of the most highly classified documents in government (see January 31, 2006). The Bush administration has routinely denied requests for PDB disclosures. A former Iran-Contra prosecutor says: “It was a backdoor way of shutting us down. It was a cover-up by means of an administrative action, and it was an effective cover-up at that.… The intelligence agencies do not declassify things on the pretext that they are protecting state secrets, but the truth is that we were investigating and prosecuting their own. The same was true for the Reagan administration. Cline was particularly adept at working the system.” Michael Bromwich, a former associate Iran-Contra independent counsel and a former Justice Department inspector general, says it might be more difficult for the Bush administration to use a similar strategy to undercut special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, because Fitzgerald was appointed by the attorney general, not a panel of judges as were Walsh and Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr. Both Walsh and Starr alleged that they were impeded by interference from political appointees in the Justice Department. Bromwich’s fellow associate Iran-Contra counsel William Treanor, now the dean of Fordham University’s Law School, agrees: “With Walsh or Starr, the president and his supporters could more easily argue that a prosecutor was overzealous or irresponsible, because there had been a three-judge panel that appointed him,” Treanor says. “With Fitzgerald, you have a prosecutor who was appointed by the deputy attorney general [at the direction of the attorney general]. The administration almost has to stand behind him because this is someone they selected themselves. It is harder to criticize someone you yourself put into play.” [National Journal, 2/6/2006]'This Is Major' - Progressive author and columnist Arianna Huffington writes: “This proves just how far the White House was willing to go to back up its deceptive claims about why we needed to go to war in Iraq. The great protectors of our country were so concerned about covering their lies they were willing to pass out highly classified information to reporters. And remember—and this is the key—it’s not partisan Democrats making this claim; it’s not Bush-bashing conspiracy theorists, or bloggers reading the Aspen roots (see September 15, 2005). This information is coming from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald as filed in court papers. This is major.” [Huffington Post, 2/9/2006]

Judge Reggie Walton orders a preliminary date set for Lewis Libby’s trial on perjury and obstruction charges (see October 28, 2005). Walton orders the date set for January 8, 2007. The rather lengthy delay is, in part, due to one of Libby’s lawyers, Theodore Wells, having another trial already set for the fall of 2006. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald does not oppose the scheduling. [MSNBC, 2/3/2006; FireDogLake, 2/3/2006] “We are very happy with the trial date set by Judge Walton,” Wells says. “The January 8, 2007, date will permit us the time we need to prepare Mr. Libby’s defense. The defense will show that Mr. Libby is totally innocent, that he has not done anything wrong, and he looks forward to being totally vindicated by a jury.” [New York Times, 2/3/2006] Walton originally wanted the trial to happen in September 2006, but it was delayed because of Wells’s scheduling conflicts. [New York Times, 2/3/2006; Washington Note, 2/3/2006]

The White House’s Office of Administration turns over a large number of e-mails from the Office of the President and the Office of the Vice President to the Libby defense lawyers. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, prosecuting former White House official Lewis Libby, had asked for, but not received, the e-mails earlier, and had wondered if they had been deleted or destroyed (see February 15, 2006). According to Libby’s defense team, the e-mails had not been “archived in the normal way,” and took longer to find. Libby’s lawyers tell a Wall Street Journal reporter that there is nothing pertinent to the case in the e-mails. The Journal will report the lawyer’s assertions three weeks later. [Wall Street Journal, 2/28/2006]

Author and columnist David Corn, who was the first member of the media to speculate that Valerie Plame Wilson’s exposure as a CIA official may have been a crime (see July 16, 2003), now speculates that the Lewis Libby defense team may resort to “graymail” to derail Libby’s criminal prosecution (see After October 28, 2005 and January 31, 2006). Corn writes: “[Y]ears ago defense attorneys representing clients connected to the national security establishment—say, a former CIA employee gone bad—figured out a way to squeeze the government in order to win the case: Claim you need access to loads of classified information in order to mount a defense—more than might truly be necessary. Of course, the government is going to put up a fight. It may release some information—but not everything a thorough defense attorney will say is needed. The goal is to get the government to say no to the informant. Then the defense attorney can attempt to convince the judge that without access to this material he or she cannot put up an adequate defense. If the lawyer succeeds, it’s case dismissed. In such situations, the defendant is essentially saying, ‘Prosecute me and I’ll blow whatever government secrets I can.’” Corn notes the defense’s requests for 10 months of highly classified Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs), a request that may yet be granted (see February 24, 2006) and as such, will set up a battle with the Bush White House, which is almost certain to refuse to release any PDBs. Corn also notes defense requests for information surrounding Plame Wilson’s covert CIA status (see Fall 1992 - 1996 and April 2001 and After), another request that, if granted, will likely be refused by the CIA. Both scenarios are openings for the defense to ask for the dismissal of all charges against their client. And Libby’s team may ask for further classified information, from the State Department, the National Security Council, and the Office of the President. [Nation, 2/6/2006]

Slate reporter John Dickerson, who formerly worked for Time magazine during the initial Plame Wilson identity leak investigation coverage, writes of his knowledge of, and participation in, the investigation, including his knowledge that White House official Karl Rove leaked Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA identity to Dickerson’s colleague, Matthew Cooper (see 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003). Dickerson co-wrote a July 2003 Time article with Cooper (see July 17, 2003) that led to Cooper’s subpoena from the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation (see August 9, 2004 and September 13, 2004), his being held in contempt of court (see October 13, 2004), and his eventual testimony (see July 13, 2005). However, Dickerson was never subpoenaed to testify before the Fitzgerald grand jury. He writes that he accompanied the gaggle of reporters with President Bush on his trip to Africa in July 2003, and of the extensive time spent by two “senior administration official[s]” telling him how partisan and unreliable Plame Wilson’s husband Joseph Wilson is, and how he should investigate what “low-level” CIA official sent Wilson to Niger (see July 11, 2003). “I thought I got the point,” Dickerson writes. “He’d been sent by someone around the rank of deputy assistant undersecretary or janitor.” Dickerson goes on to observe, “What struck me was how hard both officials were working to knock down Wilson” (see October 1, 2003). After returning from the trip, Cooper told Dickerson that Rove had informed him of Plame Wilson’s CIA identity. “So, that explained the wink-wink nudge-nudge I was getting about who sent Wilson,” Dickerson writes. Cooper and Dickerson were careful, Dickerson writes, to ensure that other reporters would not learn of Plame Wilson’s CIA identity from either of them. And Dickerson did not want to encroach on Cooper’s arrangement with Rove. Dickerson writes: “At this point the information about Valerie Plame was not the radioactive material it is today. No one knew she might have been a protected agent—and for whatever reason, the possibility didn’t occur to us or anyone else at the time. But it was still newsworthy that the White House was using her to make its case. That Scooter Libby and Karl Rove mentioned Plame to Matt was an example of how they were attempting to undermine Wilson. They were trying to make his trip look like a special family side deal not officially sanctioned by the agency.” [Slate, 2/7/2006; Slate, 2/7/2006] In 2007, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer will testify that he informed Dickerson of Plame Wilson’s identity (see 8:00 a.m. July 11, 2003), a statement that Dickerson will dispute. [Slate, 1/29/2007]

John Conyers (D-MI), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, sends a letter to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney asking about recent revelations that Cheney authorized the leak of classified information to reporters (see January 23, 2006 and February 2, 2006). Conyers writes that such an authorization, if true, would constitute “an abuse of power at best, and may be outright unlawful at worst.… [I]t would appear that neither classified nuclear information nor Valerie Plame’s status as a covert agent or the name of her employer warranted declassification.” Conyers asks whether the report is true, and whether Bush, Cheney, or any of their staff members authorized former Cheney aide Lewis Libby or anyone else “to declassify and leak information to the media relating to the Iraq war and the use of pre-war intelligence on any occasions,” and if so, what the legal basis for such declassifications would be. He also asks if Bush intends to stand by his promise to “take the appropriate action” against anyone who leaked classified information” (see September 30, 2003). [Jeralyn Merritt, 2/10/2006]

The progressive Internet news site Washington Note writes a follow-up to the day’s revelation that the exposure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as a covert CIA agent caused heavy damage to the CIA’s ability to monitor Iran’s nuclear weapons program (see February 13, 2006). The Note reports that, according to its source, Plame Wilson’s husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, included information about Iran’s nuclear program in the report from his 2002 trip to Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002 and March 4-5, 2002). Note reporter Steve Clemons says he cannot be sure of the accuracy of the claim, “so please take the following with a grain of salt until further sourced.” Clemons describes his source as “[s]omeone with knowledge of the classified report that Joe Wilson ‘orally’ filed after his now famed investigative trip to Niger.” Wilson allegedly included two notes in his debriefing that related to Iran and its possible activities in Niger. Clemons writes that “various intelligence sources” speculate that if Iran was indeed attempting to acquire Nigerien uranium, it would be to avoid “the international intelligence monitoring of Iran’s domestic mining operations.” Wilson, according to the source, may have reported that Iran, not Iraq, tried to acquire 400 to 500 tons of Nigerien uranium (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001). Clemons writes that the notes from Wilson’s Niger debriefing have been destroyed, making it much harder to verify the claims. [Washington Note, 2/13/2006]

The online news site Raw Story publishes an article claiming that the exposure of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson (see June 13, 2003, June 23, 2003, July 7, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, July 8, 2003, 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003, 8:00 a.m. July 11, 2003, Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003, 1:26 p.m. July 12, 2003, July 12, 2003, and July 14, 2003) caused more damage to US national security than has previously been admitted, particularly in the area of containing foreign nuclear proliferation. Editor and reporter Larisa Alexandrovna sources the story from a number of anonymous current and former intelligence officials. Plame Wilson, the officials say, was an integral part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran. Alexandrovna writes, “Their [the officials’] accounts suggest that Plame [Wilson]‘s outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for US national security and its ability to monitor Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program.” The officials say that while previous reports indicate Plame Wilson may have been involved in monitoring nuclear “black market” activities, particularly those involving Abdul Qadeer Khan (see Late February 1999), her real focus was Iran, though her team would have come into contact with Khan’s black market network during the course of its work on Iran’s nuclear program. Khan’s network is believed to have been the primary source of Iran’s nuclear weapons efforts. The officials refuse to identify the specifics of Plame Wilson’s work, but do say that her exposure resulted in “severe” damage to her team and significantly hampered the CIA’s ability to monitor nuclear proliferation. [Raw Story, 2/13/2006] The officials also say that the CIA conducted an “aggressive” in-house assessment of the damage caused by Plame Wilson’s exposure shortly after the White House leaked her identity to the press, and found the damage done by the leak “severe” (see Before September 16, 2003).

The media learns that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has withheld White House e-mails from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. If revealed, those e-mails may shed light on which White House officials were involved in leaking the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to a number of reporters. Sources close to the Fitzgerald investigation team say that the e-mails may have the potential to incriminate Vice President Dick Cheney, his aides, and/or other White House officials involved in leaking Plame Wilson’s identity to the press. The sources also say that Cheney, in his 2004 testimony before Fitzgerald’s prosecutors, may have lied when he said that neither he nor any of his aides were involved in the Plame Wilson leak, and the e-mails could prove that Cheney was dishonest in his testimony. The e-mails Gonzales is withholding contain references to Plame Wilson’s identity and CIA status, and information regarding the inability to find WMD in Iraq. They also contain suggestions as to how White House officials could respond to increasingly negative criticisms about their conduct of the war from Plame Wilson’s husband, Joseph Wilson. Gonzales, who was the senior White House counsel at the time of the leak, coordinated the White House’s response to the FBI’s investigation of the leak (see May 8, 2004); he and other White House attorneys spent two weeks screening e-mails turned over to his office by some 2,000 staffers. Gonzales told Fitzgerald in 2005 that he had no intention of turning over the e-mails, because they contained classified intelligence information about Iraq in addition to minor references to Plame Wilson. The sources say Gonzales cited “executive privilege” and “national security concerns” as the reasons for not turning over some of the correspondence. Fitzgerald believes that other e-mails were intentionally “shredded” or deleted by either Gonzales or other White House officials. Fitzgerald has informed the judge presiding over the investigation that e-mails from the offices of Cheney and President Bush have not been saved. In a letter to the defense team of former Cheney chief of staff Lewis Libby, Fitzgerald has written, “In an abundance of caution, we advise you that we have learned that not all e-mail of the Office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system.” [Truthout (.org), 2/15/2006] The Wall Street Journal will write that the e-mails have been in the Libby team’s possession since February 6 (see February 6, 2006).

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald asks Judge Reggie Walton not to grant the request of the Lewis Libby defense team for documents pertaining to reporters’ conversations with White House officials (see January 26, 2006). Libby’s lawyers have already received over 11,000 pages in classified and unclassified documents, says Fitzgerald, including materials from the Office of the Vice President. The defense is also seeking a raft of classified information from the White House and the CIA (see December 14, 2005, January 9, 2006, January 20, 2006, January 23, 2006, January 23, 2006, January 31, 2006, and (February 16, 2006)). “The government has produced all documents and information to which defendant is entitled,” Fitzgerald writes in a court filing. “Requiring the production of the additional materials sought by defendant would unreasonably encroach on legitimate interests of national security, grand jury secrecy, and executive privilege.” [Bloomberg, 2/17/2006]

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald makes a filing to the court in opposition to the Lewis Libby defense team’s requests for highly classified information (see December 14, 2005, January 9, 2006, January 23, 2006, January 31, 2006, and February 21, 2006), requests that some have characterized as an attempt to “graymail” the government (see After October 28, 2005, January 31, 2006, and February 6, 2006) by threatening to reveal national security secrets. In his brief, Fitzgerald calls the defense request for almost 11 months of Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs) “breathtaking” and unnecessary for a perjury defense. “The defendant’s effort to make history in this case by seeking 277 PDBs in discovery—for the sole purpose of showing that he was ‘preoccupied’ with other matters when he gave testimony to the grand jury—is a transparent effort at ‘greymail.’” [Nation, 2/17/2006]

Shortly after the press learns that White House counsel Alberto Gonzales has withheld White House e-mails from the Fitzgerald investigation (see February 15, 2006), the White House turns over some 250 pages of e-mails from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. The e-mails were sent during the spring of 2003 by senior Cheney aides, and pertain to the leak of CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert identity to the press. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald reveals the “discovery” of the missing e-mails in court. According to reporter Jason Leopold, the contents of the e-mails are “explosive, and may prove that Cheney played an active role in the effort to discredit Plame Wilson’s husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s pre-war Iraq intelligence.” According to Leopold’s sources, the e-mails could also prove that Cheney lied to FBI investigators when he was interviewed about the leak in early 2004 (see May 8, 2004). Cheney told investigators that he knew nothing of any effort to discredit Wilson or to expose his wife’s undercover status to reporters. However, the e-mails indicate that Cheney led an effort to discredit Wilson that began in March 2003, and used the CIA to dig up information on Wilson that could be used to dirty his reputation in the press (see March 9, 2003 and After). Some of the e-mails refer to Plame Wilson’s identity and CIA status, and reference the US military’s inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The e-mails also contain suggestions from Cheney’s senior aides, and from staffers of the National Security Council, as to how the White House should respond to Wilson’s criticisms of the administration’s pre-war Iraq intelligence. Fitzgerald has been attempting to secure the “missing” e-mails since late January (see January 23, 2006). Gonzales is still refusing to turn over some of the e-mails, citing “executive privilege” and “national security” concerns. [Truthout (.org), 2/24/2006; Associated Press, 2/27/2006] On February 28, the Wall Street Journal will write that the e-mails have been in the Libby team’s possession since February 6, and that they contain nothing pertinent to the trial (see February 6, 2006).

Web site header graphic for the Libby Legal Defense Trust’s site, reduced in size. [Source: Libby Legal Defense Trust] (click image to enlarge)Conservative media outlets such as the Web site Human Events announce the launch of scooterlibby.com, a Web site that coordinates and markets the fundraising efforts of the Lewis Libby defense fund (see After October 28, 2005). (The site also operates under the URL scooterlibby.org.) The chairman of the Libby Legal Defense Trust, Republican fundraiser and former ambassador Mel Sembler, writes on the front page of the site: “Since September 11, 2001, Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby has been one of the unsung heroes in fighting the war on terror, working diligently and making countless contributions on some of the most critical life and death issues that our country has faced. For the past five years, Scooter Libby served selflessly as an assistant to President Bush and as the chief of staff and national security adviser to Vice President Cheney. But Scooter’s great service to our country has now been cut short, and his good name attacked. A distinguished group of friends, business leaders, and former government officials have joined the Libby Legal Defense Trust to help Scooter defray his legal costs from the recent charges. We hope you will join us in supporting this effort.” The site features an endorsement from Dick Cheney calling Libby “one of the most capable and talented individuals I have ever known.” [Human Events, 2/21/2006; Jeralyn Merritt, 2/21/2006; Libby Legal Defense Trust, 2/21/2006] Sembler says the group wants to raise $5 million for Libby’s defense. The group, staffed with veteran fundraisers who worked for the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign and other high-profile Republican campaigns, is believed to have raised almost half of that amount already. [Washington Post, 2/22/2006] In upcoming days, Slate editor John Dickerson will publish an analysis of the site’s efforts, calling it an attempt to “humanize” Libby and portray him as a selfless, innocent victim of government persecution (see February 27, 2006).

Lawyers for indicted former White House official Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005) move for the charges against their client to be dismissed, on the ground that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald lacks the constitutional authority to bring such charges. The lawyers argue that Fitzgerald was improperly appointed by the Justice Department instead of by Congress (see December 30, 2003), and therefore no charges brought or evidence gathered by him and his office have any standing in the court. “Those constitutional and statutory provisions have been violated in this case,” Libby’s lawyers argue. Most legal observers doubt the motion will be granted. Former independent counsel Scott Fredericksen, who investigated Reagan-era scandals at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, says, “I think it’s a nice try, but I don’t give it much chance of success.” Legal experts say the Supreme Court ruled against a similar claim in 1998, in Morrison v. Olson. Government regulations clearly give the Justice Department the authority to appoint a special counsel when conflicts of interest within the department, or within the White House, make the normal procedures questionable. “The regulations that created the special counsel are safe from attack,” Fredericksen says. [Associated Press, 2/23/2006; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 2/23/2006 ; Washington Post, 2/24/2006]

In a court hearing, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald argues that Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as a covert CIA official (see Fall 1992 - 1996) is irrelevant to the perjury charges pending against former White House official Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005). “We’re trying a perjury case,” Fitzgerald tells Judge Reggie Walton. Even if Plame Wilson had never worked for the CIA at all, Fitzgerald continues, even if she had been simply mistaken for a CIA agent, the charges against Libby would still stand. Furthermore, Fitzgerald tells Walton, he does not intend to offer “any proof of actual damage” caused by the disclosure of Plame Wilson’s identity. Libby’s defense lawyer Theodore Wells objects to Fitzgerald’s statement, saying that in the actual trial, Fitzgerald will likely tell the jury that the leak of Plame Wilson’s identity either damaged or could have damaged the CIA’s ability to gather critical intelligence (see Before September 16, 2003, October 3, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, October 23-24, 2003, and February 13, 2006). Wells says he may call either Plame Wilson, her husband Joseph Wilson (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), or both to testify in the case, as well as CIA employees. “I might call Ms. Wilson” to testify, he says. “I might call her husband. There are going to be CIA employees as witnesses in this.… Was she just classified because some bureaucracy didn’t declassify her five years ago when they should have?” Wells asks if Plame Wilson may have been “classified based on a piece of paper.” One anonymous source tells a National Review columnist: “She was definitely undercover by agency standards at the time in question. That was a classified bit of information, and is sufficient as far as the agency is concerned to bring it to the attention of the Justice Department. You can argue whether she should have been, but as far as the agency was concerned it was classified.” [National Review, 2/27/2006] In his statement to the court, Fitzgerald notes: “[T]he issue is whether [Libby] knowingly lied or not. And if there is information about actual damage, whatever was caused or not caused that isn’t in his mind, it is not a defense. If she turned out to be a postal driver mistaken for a CIA employee, it’s not a defense if you lie in a grand jury under oath about what you said and you told people, ‘I didn’t know he had a wife.’ That is what this case is about. It is about perjury, if he knowingly lied or not.” [Truthout (.org), 3/18/2006]

Judge Reggie Walton rules that the defense team for indicted former White House official Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005) will be provided copies of notes Libby took in 2003 and 2004, while he served as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby’s lawyers have argued that their client needs these notes to prove that he did not lie to federal investigators about his involvement in the leak of covert CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Walton puts off a decision as to whether Libby can have copies of other materials, including copies of the highly classified Presidential Daily Briefs (PDBs—see January 31, 2006). Walton writes that he fears Libby’s request may “sabotage” the case because he expects President Bush to invoke executive privilege and refuse to turn over the PDBs. “The vice president—his boss—said these are the family jewels,” Walton notes, referring to previous descriptions of the PDBs by Cheney. “If the executive branch says, ‘This is too important to the welfare of the nation and we’re not going to comply,’ the criminal prosecution goes away.” Walton also denies a defense request to stop special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald from filing information for Walton’s review, such as strategy memos and classified information Fitzgerald wants withheld from Libby’s lawyers. Walton says he needs to see what Fitzgerald is withholding from the defense to ensure the prosecutor is making the correct call. [Jurist, 2/25/2006; Associated Press, 2/27/2006]

The New York Sun prints an editorial supporting the motion by Lewis Libby to dismiss all charges against him (see February 23, 2006). The Sun agrees with the defense lawyers’ argument that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed illictly by the Department of Justice, and calls him “an illegal, extra-constitutional prosecutor.” The Sun cites a statement made by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers, and a letter written by Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, opposing the power of the executive branch to appoint officials without Congressional approval. Fitzgerald operates “unchecked,” the Sun states, and entirely outside the law. The Sun also renews its call (see December 8, 2005) for its readers to donate to the Libby defense fund (see February 21, 2006). [New York Sun, 2/24/2006]

Lawyers for indicted former White House official Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005) say they intend to subpoena news reporters and organizations in defense of their client. Judge Reggie Walton, presiding over the upcoming trial, has yet to rule whether he will allow such subpoenas. Libby’s lawyers say they want to question journalists who have testified that they were the recipients of classified information from Libby (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Walton has set a deadline of April 7, 2006 for any subpoenaed journalists and news organizations to respond as to their intentions to testify in Libby’s trial. [NewsMax, 2/25/2006]

Judge Reggie Walton issues an order significantly curtailing the Lewis Libby defense team’s requests for highly classified White House materials (see After October 28, 2005, January 31, 2006, February 6, 2006, (February 16, 2006), and February 21, 2006). Walton’s orders indicate that he may accept the defense team’s requests for some, but not all, of the highly classified Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs), requests that have become a source of conflict between the defense and the prosecution. “Upon closer reflection, it is becoming apparent to this court that what is possibly material to the defendant’s ability to develop his defense” is not every detail from the briefings that Libby received as Cheney’s national security adviser, Walton says. The defense says it needs the PDBs to establish how busy Libby was with national security matters and therefore bolster their expected defense of Libby’s failure to remember his conversations about outed CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson when he allegedly lied to the FBI and to the grand jury (Libby’s so-called “memory defense”—see October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, March 24, 2004, and January 31, 2006). General descriptions of the briefings from specific time periods might be sufficient, Walton continues. Walton also asks the CIA to tell him what, if any, documents the Libby team has requested from it might be available. Washington attorney Lawrence Barcella says Walton’s efforts would hamper Libby’s defense strategy. “What makes the defense so viable is for him to show the enormity of what he dealt with on a daily basis,” Barcella says. “If you sanitize it just so you can get past the classified information issue, you significantly lessen the potential impact of it.” [Associated Press, 2/27/2006; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 2/27/2006 ] Criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt, writing for the progressive blog TalkLeft, states: “I think Libby has boxed himself in on his memory defense. He now has a huge burden to show that he was so preoccupied with other matters on six or seven different occasions that he couldn’t accurately remember what he told or was told by [reporters Judith] Miller, [Matthew] Cooper, and [Tim] Russert. It’s almost like using the space cadet defense many drug defendants offer, rarely sucessfully.” [Jeralyn Merritt, 2/27/2006]

Lewis Libby’s legal team hires well-known memory expert Daniel L. Schacter as a consultant. Schacter is a psychology professor at Harvard University, and has written books on the subject of memory loss. In one of his books, Schacter wrote that if we are distracted as an event unfolds, “we may later have great difficulty remembering the details of what happened.” It is easy, Schacter has written, to “unwittingly create mistaken—though strongly held—beliefs about the past.” A central tenet of Libby’s defense strategy is to assert that Libby’s repeated falsehoods to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and the grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) were the result of memory problems and not deliberate lies (see January 31, 2006). According to one of Libby’s lawyers, during his hectic days handling sensitive national security matters, “it is understandable that he may have forgotten or misremembered relatively less significant events. Such relatively less important events include alleged snippets of conversations about [outed CIA agent] Valerie Plame Wilson’s employment status.” [MSNBC, 2/28/2006]

Slate editor John Dickerson, who played a small role in the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak (see February 7, 2006), writes about the recently launched Lewis Libby defense fund’s Web site created to help raise money for Libby’s defense (see After October 28, 2005 and February 21, 2006). Far from looking like the Web site of an indicted criminal, Dickerson writes, the site’s design makes it seem as if Libby is running for elected office. He is shown with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, while “[o]ther snapshots portray him in soft focus and at oblique angles, the kinds of images candidates use to make themselves look more huggable. Fortunately, Libby’s Web designers didn’t stoop to showing him with dogs and children.” The 'Soft Sell' - Dickerson says the site is attempting to portray Libby to the American people as a likeable, honest person whose years of public service have left him open to unfair and unwarranted criminal charges. The site claims that Libby has virtually no money with which to fight those charges, and is basically relying on the generosity of the public to help him fight the government. The site does not focus as strongly on the array of powerful Washington Republicans lined up to help Libby raise money, particularly the large number of star fundraisers who raised large amounts of money for the Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns. However, the site notes, the Libby defense fund will not publicly release the names of donors to the fund. The site does focus on what Dickerson calls “the soft Scooter sell.” It intends to “clean… up his image for the public, the press, and potential jurors. The Web site offers a page titled ‘What You Aren’t Hearing,’ with testimonials lined up like movie blurbs.” Possible Defense Strategy - And, Dickerson writes, the site offers hints as to what Libby’s defense strategy might be. If the site is accurate, the defense team intends to portray Libby as “a good guy” who, as former Republican congressman Vin Weber says in a testimonial, “is a tough, honorable, honest guy.” He has spent his adult life in “selfless,” and apparently almost penniless, service to his country, fighting for the American people and battling terrorism and other national security threats with every waking breath. He is a “perfectionist,” says former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Libby just forgot about his knowledge of Plame Wilson’s CIA status, the site emphasizes, because he was too busy serving his country (see January 31, 2006). Former Bush Legislative Affairs Director Nick Calio is quoted as saying: “There are a lot of things that I don’t remember. I go through notes sometimes now and say I don’t even remember being in the meeting, let alone, you know, having said what I said.” Former Bush Solicitor General Theodore Olson adds, “From personal experience as a former public official who has been investigated by a special prosecutor, I know how easy it is not to be able to remember details of seemingly insignificant conversations.” Dickerson notes that the two arguments are somewhat contradictory. He writes, “Libby’s site has a hard time, because it simultaneously is trying to argue that a) he was likely to forget the Plame episodes and b) he was hypercompetent.” The site also spends a large amount of time and bandwidth attacking special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Seven of the 19 perspectives on Libby are criticisms of Fitzgerald, such as a statement by former Deputy Attorney General Victoria Toensing (see November 3, 2005) that the special counsel “has been investigating a very simple factual scenario and he’s missed this crucial fact.” [Slate, 2/27/2006] Toensing will engage in further criticism of Fitzgerald and the criminal case against Libby in op-eds (see February 18, 2007, February 18, 2007, and March 16, 2007).

According to progressive columnist and blogger Arianna Huffington, conservative MSNBC pundit Tucker Carlson is failing to inform his viewers and readers of his family’s connections to the Lewis Libby defense fund, even as he regularly defends Libby and criticizes his prosecution on his television show and on his blog. Carlson’s father, former Corporation for Public Broadcasting head Richard Carlson, is a heavy donor to the Libby defense fund and a member of the fund’s advisory committee (see After October 28, 2005). Tucker Carlson’s criticisms of special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald (see November 17, 2005) are prominently displayed on the defense fund’s Web site (see February 21, 2006). [Huffington Post, 2/28/2006]

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald files a motion with the court in the Lewis Libby perjury trial to deny the Libby team’s request for a wide array of documents (see February 27, 2006). Almost all of the filing is redacted before its release to the public, but it apparently specifies the documents Fitzgerald is opposed to collecting and releasing. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/1/2009 ]

Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, still embroiled in controversy over his attempts to disprove the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002 and July 6, 2003), attends the National Day festivities in Morocco. While standing alone, he is approached by an American who identifies himself as a “leading member of the Washington evangelical movement.” Wilson expects to be reviled and lambasted, as has happened so many times before during his encounters with members of the Christian right. Instead, the man grasps his hand and whispers, “You should know that there are many of us that support you.” A surprised Wilson asks why, and the man replies, “[B]ecause we believe in truth, and we know that this government has lied.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 174-175] Wilson will not identify the evangelical; it is not clear that he knows the man’s identity.

The CIA refuses to release a raft of classified agency documents requested by the Lewis Libby defense team (see January 31, 2006 and February 27, 2006). Meeting the Libby team’s request, CIA spokeswoman Marilyn Dorn says in a court filing, would “impose an enormous burden” and divert CIA analysts from more important tasks. To compile and provide those documents, Dorn says, would take around nine months. Libby’s lawyers say the CIA is exaggerating the difficulty of finding and releasing the documents, calling the argument “astonishing,” but also scale back their requests in hopes that Judge Reggie Walton will compel the agency to comply with the document demands. Some of the information originally requested includes CIA copies of the Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs) from an 11-month period in 2003 and 2004. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has accused the Libby team of engaging in “graymail” (see (February 16, 2006)), demanding unobtainable classified government documents in order to shut down the prosecution. Libby’s team has called that accusation “not only false but insulting” (see February 6, 2006). Libby’s lawyers now say they will be satisfied with the PDBs provided to Vice President Dick Cheney. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/2/2006 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/7/2006 ; Washington Post, 3/8/2006]

Judge Reggie Walton orders the CIA to turn over some of the highly classified intelligence briefings to the Lewis Libby defense team that it has requested (see March 2-7, 2006). Walton rejects CIA arguments that disclosure of the Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs) would be detrimental to national security. He says the agency can either delete highly classified material from the briefings, or provide “topic overviews” of the matters covered in them. “It is unlikely that this court would permit anything other than the general topic areas of these documents to be introduced at trial,” he writes. “The defendant does not need the explicit details of the intelligence documents he desires to obtain. The general topics of the documents would provide the defendant exactly the information he seeks, listings of the pressing matters presented to him during the times relevant to the case.” Walton only grants 46 days’ worth of the PDBs, instead of the nine months’ worth the defense had originally asked for (see December 14, 2005). He also orders the CIA to give Libby an index of the topics covered in follow-up questions that the former White House aide asked intelligence officers who conducted the briefings. [Associated Press, 3/10/2006; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/10/2006 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/10/2006 ; New York Times, 3/11/2006] Criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt writes: “These documents most likely will never be seen by us or the jury. They are to assist Libby with refreshing his memory.” [Jeralyn Merritt, 3/10/2006]

The Chicago Tribune uses commercial, Internet-based data search facilities to discover the names and whereabouts of 2,653 CIA officials, many of them covert. It also discovers some 50 internal agency telephone numbers, and the locations of two dozen secret CIA facilities around the US. The CIA is still grappling with the problem of Internet data search facilities risking the covert status of its employees; Director Porter Goss is said to be “horrified” at the prospect of hundreds of his agency’s officials being exposed via the Internet. “Cover is a complex issue that is more complex in the Internet age,” says CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Dyck. “There are things that worked previously that no longer work. Director Goss is committed to modernizing the way the agency does cover in order to protect our officers who are doing dangerous work.” Dyck refuses to give details of the remedies, “since we don’t want the bad guys to know what we’re fixing.” The Tribune declines to publish any personal information on the CIA employees it has unearthed, and is uncertain which of the 2,653 officials it located are actually covert agents. Most of the secret facilities the Tribune found are in northern Virginia, but some are in Chicago, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Washington State. A senior official says of the data searches, “I don’t know whether al-Qaeda could do this, but the Chinese could.” The Tribune’s data search began with Camp Peary, the Virginia training facility known as “The Farm,” and only recently acknowledged by the agency. [Chicago Tribune, 3/12/2006]

Former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee tells Vanity Fair that he thinks it is likely that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is the person who revealed CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity to Post reporter Bob Woodward (see November 14, 2005). The magazine quotes Bradlee, now the Post’s vice president at large, as saying, “That Armitage is the likely source is a fair assumption.” Bradlee denies making the statement in a Post article, saying: “I don’t think I said it.… I know who his source is, and I don’t want to get into it.… I have not told a soul who it is.” Bradlee says he did not learn the name of the source from Woodward, and Woodward says he never informed Bradlee of his source’s identity: “He is not in the management loop on this. Maybe he was alerted from somebody else, if he in fact did learn” the source’s name. Vanity Fair says the reporter who wrote the article featuring the Bradlee quote, Marie Brenner, is traveling in India and is unavailable for comment. [Washington Post, 3/14/2006; Washington Post, 7/3/2007] Bradlee tells a New York Times reporter that Armitage’s identification as Woodward’s source is “an inference that could be drawn.” He tells the Times reporter, “Woodward is not my source for any knowledge I have about the case.” [New York Times, 3/14/2006]

The Libby defense team files a motion asking the court to disallow the prosecution to present classified information to Judge Reggie Walton without the defense’s presence. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald intends to argue that certain classified information is not pertinent to the defense of accused perjurer Lewis Libby, and wants to share that information with Walton, but not with Libby’s lawyers. Fitzgerald has argued that the information must be kept secret in order to protect national security, an argument that Libby’s lawyers say “rings hollow.” They tout Libby, who leaked classified information to reporters (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003), as someone who “has diligently protected some of this country’s most sensitive secrets throughout his many years of public service.” Fitzgerald has noted that an underlying criminal charge against Libby is the failure to adequately safeguard sensitive classified information. Walton has already ordered the government to turn over some classified information to the defense (see March 10, 2006). [Associated Press, 3/15/2006; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/15/2006 ] Former state prosecutor Christy Hardin Smith observes that Libby has already violated his nondisclosure agreement against revealing classified information, and writes: “By breaking the law and releasing sensitive national security information, Scooter Libby forfeited his privilege of clearance—any presumption that he had the integrity to protect the nation’s secrets is gone. He is being treated like any other defendant in this situation—and who he worked for and how high his friends go in the government ought not matter one whit.” [Christy Hardin Smith, 3/16/2006]

Defense lawyers for former White House official Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005) file papers asserting that Libby had not intentionally deceived FBI agents (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and the grand jury investigating the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) because Plame Wilson’s role was was only “peripheral” to potentially more serious questions regarding the Bush administration’s use of intelligence in the prewar debate. The papers reiterate earlier defense requests for classified CIA and White House documents for Libby’s defense. Referring to Plame Wilson’s husband Joseph Wilson’s criticism of the White House’s manipulation of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq invasion and the White House’s strategy to counter such criticism (see June 2003 and October 1, 2003), the attorneys tell the court, “The media conflagration ignited by the failure to find [weapons of mass destruction] in Iraq and in part by Mr. Wilson’s criticism of the administration, led officials within the White House, the State Department, and the CIA to blame each other, publicly and in private, for faulty prewar intelligence about Iraq’s WMD capabilities.” Plame Wilson’s identity was disclosed during “a period of increasing bureaucratic infighting, when certain officials at the CIA, the White House, and the State Department each sought to avoid or assign blame for intelligence failures relating to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capability,” the attorneys write. “The White House and the CIA were widely regarded to be at war.” The defense lawyers also assert that Libby “believed his actions were authorized” and that he had “testified before the grand jury that this disclosure was authorized,” a reference to the classified intelligence he leaked to New York Times reporter Judith Miller (see February 2, 2006). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/17/2006 ; National Journal, 3/30/2006] According to criminal defense attorney Jeralyn Merritt, Libby is asking for the documents to bolster his “memory defense” strategy (see January 31, 2006). She writes: “Shorter Libby: My memory is bad because I was so embroiled in internal fighting and finger pointing at the White House about why we didn’t find any WMD’s that the Plame/Wilson matter was a trifling detail in comparison.” [Jeralyn Merritt, 3/18/2006]

The Lewis Libby defense team accuses special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald of changing and narrowing his original broadly worded investigative mandate (see December 30, 2003) in order to avoid having his case against Libby dismissed. In a court filing, Libby’s team accuses Fitzgerald and the former Justice Department official who appointed him, James Comey, of rewriting Fitzgerald’s original mandate. According to Libby’s lawyers, the original mandate of what they call “unsupervised and undirected power” requires that Fitzgerald be relieved of his duties and all the results of his investigation, including any evidence of wrongdoing, be voided. “The government attempts to salvage the appointment by submitting two affidavits recently prepared by Mr. Comey and Mr. Fitzgerald, claiming that their previously undisclosed, subjective understanding of the appointment was narrower,” Libby’s lawyers write, apparently referring to Fitzgerald’s recent assertion that the Libby prosecution is about perjury and obstruction of justice, not about the leak of former CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert agency status. “Mr. Comey now asserts that ‘it was my intention that the special counsel would follow substantive department policies’ in exercising that authority,” the lawyers note, not to follow what they say was Fitzgerald’s unrestricted investigation that, they allege, violated Justice Department policies. The lawyers also reiterate their claim that Fitzgerald’s appointment is unconstitutional because he should have been appointed by Congress, not the Justice Department (see February 23, 2006). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 3/31/2006 ; Associated Press, 4/1/2006; Associated Press, 4/1/2006] Judge Reggie Walton will refuse to dismiss the charges (see April 26, 2006).

Representative Jane Harman (D-CA), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, says she is appalled at President Bush’s 2003 decision to leak portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, as Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff Lewis Libby has testified (see March 24, 2004). Portions of Libby’s testimony are just now becoming public knowledge. “Leaking classified information to the press when you want to get your side out or silence your critics is not appropriate,” Harman says. “If I had leaked the information, I’d be in jail. Why should the president be above the law? I am stunned.” [National Journal, 6/14/2006]

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, indicted on charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the investigation of the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak (see October 28, 2005), testified two years ago that President Bush authorized him to selectively disclose information from the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate in order to defend the administration’s decision to go to war with Iraq, according to papers filed with the court by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Libby’s testimony, to Fitzgerald’s grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), has remained secret until now. According to the testimony, Libby received “approval from the president through the vice president” to divulge portions of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE—see October 1, 2002) regarding Saddam Hussein’s purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons to certain reporters. Libby testified that Vice President Dick Cheney authorized him to divulge the key judgments from the NIE to New York Times reporter Judith Miller (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003) and Time reporter Matthew Cooper (see 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003) because, in Cheney’s opinion, it was “very important” to do so. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/5/2006 ; National Journal, 4/6/2006; Washington Post, 4/13/2006] (A week later, Fitzgerald will modify his filing to read, “some of the key judgments.” The New York Times will report, “The distinction between the two versions is that the second accurately stated that the finding about Iraq’s efforts to obtain uranium was in the report, but was not among its ‘key judgments,’ a term used in intelligence reporting to indicate that a stated conclusion represents the consensus of intelligence agencies.”) [Washington Post, 4/12/2006; New York Times, 4/13/2006] According to the filing: “Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him [Libby] that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE. Defendant testified that he also spoke to David Addington, then counsel to the vice president, whom defendant considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington opined that presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document” (see July 8, 2003). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/5/2006 ; Think Progress, 4/6/2006]Bush Declassified Information for Purposes of Leaking - According to the court papers, Libby “further testified that he at first advised the vice president that he could not have this conversation with reporter Miller because of the classified nature of the NIE. [Libby] testified that the vice president had advised [Libby] that the president had authorized [Libby] to disclose relevant portions of the NIE.” Libby testified that such presidential authorization to reveal classified information was “unique in his recollection.” He testified that Cheney specifically had him “speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin [the then-communications director for Cheney] regarding the NIE and Wilson.” Libby added that “at the time of his conversations with Miller and Cooper, he understood that only three people—the president, the vice president, and [Libby]—knew that the key judgments of the NIE had been declassified.” Libby said that Cheney’s senior lawyer, Addington, told him that Bush had, by authorizing the disclosure, effectively declassified the information, a point that legal experts continue to dispute. Since then, Libby has told reporters that Cheney also authorized him to leak classified information to several reporters in the weeks and months before the Iraqi invasion. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/5/2006 ; National Journal, 4/6/2006]Providing Classified Information to Woodward - Libby also testified that Bush authorized him to provide classified information to author and reporter Bob Woodward. Woodward was working on his book about the administration’s run-up to war with Iraq, Plan of Attack. According to other former senior government officials, Bush directed several White House officials to assist Woodward in preparing the book. One government official says, “There were people on the seventh floor [of the CIA] who were told by [then-CIA Director George] Tenet to cooperate because the president wanted it done. There were calls to people to by [White House communication director] Dan Bartlett that the president wanted it done, if you were not co-operating. And sometimes the president himself told people that they should co-operate.” According to some former officials, the White House provided Woodward with selected information in order to shape the course of his writing. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/5/2006 ; National Journal, 4/6/2006]

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald files a brief with the court that states unequivocally that the White House orchestrated an attempt to besmirch the character and integrity of former ambassador Joseph Wilson (see June 2003, June 3, 2003, June 11, 2003, June 12, 2003, June 19 or 20, 2003, July 6, 2003, July 6-10, 2003, July 7, 2003 or Shortly After, 8:45 a.m. July 7, 2003, 9:22 a.m. July 7, 2003, July 7-8, 2003, July 11, 2003, (July 11, 2003), July 12, 2003, July 12, 2003, July 18, 2003, and October 1, 2003). The New York Times describes Wilson as “the man who emerged as the most damaging critic of the administration’s case that Saddam Hussein was seeking to build nuclear weapons.” Bush, Cheney at Heart of Smear Campaign - Fitzgerald’s court filing places President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney directly at the center of the controversy, which erupted when conservative columnist Robert Novak used information from White House sources to “out” Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, as a covert CIA agent (see July 14, 2003). According to Fitzgerald, the White House engaged in “a plan to discredit, punish, or seek revenge against Mr. Wilson.” The filing concludes, “It is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to ‘punish Wilson.’” Fitzgerald’s portrait of events is at odds with the Bush administration’s narrative, which attempts to portray Wilson as a minor figure whose criticism of the Iraq invasion comes from his personal and political agenda. Fitzgerald is preparing to turn over to the defense lawyers for Lewis Libby some 1,400 pages of handwritten notes—some presumably by Libby himself—that should bolster Fitzgerald’s assertion. Fitzgerald will file papers in support of his assertion that Bush ordered the selective disclosure of parts of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (see October 1, 2002) as part of the White House’s attempt to discredit Wilson. Fitzgerald: Cheney Headed Campaign - Fitzgerald views Cheney, not Bush, as being at what the Times calls “the epicenter of concern about Mr. Wilson.” Fitzgerald notes that Wilson’s op-ed in the New York Times (see July 6, 2003) “was viewed in the Office of the Vice President as a direct attack on the credibility of the vice president (and the president) on a matter of signal importance: the rationale for the war in Iraq.… Disclosing the belief that Mr. Wilson’s wife sent him on the Niger trip was one way for defendant to contradict the assertion that the vice president had done so, while at the same time undercutting Mr. Wilson’s credibility if Mr. Wilson were perceived to have received the assignment on account of nepotism.” Neither Bush’s then-National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, nor Rice’s deputy and eventual successor, Stephen Hadley, knew of the information declassification, Libby indicates. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/5/2006 ; Los Angeles Times, 4/7/2006; New York Times, 4/11/2006; National Journal, 6/14/2006; Washington Post, 7/3/2007]Bush Authorized Leak of Classified Intelligence - Fitzgerald’s filing also states that, according to Libby’s earlier testimony (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), Bush directly authorized the leak of classified intelligence to reporters as part of the Wilson smear campaign (see April 5, 2006). Democrats Dismayed at Allegations of Bush Involvement - Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) says: “After the CIA leak controversy broke three years ago, President Bush said, ‘I’d like to know if somebody in my White House did leak sensitive information.’ Now we find out that the president himself was ordering leaks of classified information.… It’s time for the president to come clean with the American people.” And in a letter to Bush, Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), the ranking minority member of the House Oversight Committee, writes in part, “Two recent revelations raise grave new questions about whether you, the vice president and your top advisors have engaged in a systematic abuse of the national security classification process for political purposes.” [Los Angeles Times, 4/7/2006]

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald responds to the Lewis Libby defense team’s third motion to compel the discovery of a huge number of classified documents (see March 17, 2006), including Presidential Daily Briefings, the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (see October 1, 2002), and a raft of CIA documents. Judge Reggie Walton has already allowed the discovery of some of the requested documents (see March 10, 2006). Fitzgerald writes that Libby is seeking “nearly every document generated by four large executive branch entities relating to Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger” (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), and notes that such a request is overly broad, unnecessary for a perjury defense, and relies on an incorrect reading of the law. The request, Fitzgerald writes, “is premised on relevance arguments which overlook the fact that defendant is charged with perjury, not a conspiracy to commit various other crimes.” Hence the requsted documents go “far beyond the scope of what is relevant to the charges contained in the indictment.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/5/2006 ; New York Sun, 4/7/2006]

Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), the ranking minority member of the House Oversight Committee, writes a letter to President Bush requesting a “full accounting” of two events that raise the question of whether the White House engaged in what Waxman calls “a systematic abuse of the national security classification process for political purposes.” Waxman is referring to recent press reports that Bush, through Vice President Dick Cheney, authorized former White House official Lewis Libby to leak classified information to reporters “in order to blunt criticism from former ambassador Joe Wilson about your improper use of intelligence in the run-up to war” (see April 5, 2006). He is also referring to recent allegations that Bush and his administration officials failed to alert the public that months before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, they knew that claims of Iraqi nuclear weapons were likely false. Waxman asks for a full accounting of these matters, and for the declassification of the President’s Summary of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (see October 1, 2002). [House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, 4/6/2006] It is unclear whether Waxman ever receives a reply to his letter.

In an editorial, the New York Sun writes that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald seems to believe that he is the government, accountable to no one but himself. The Sun bases this claim on what it calls a “brazen” attempt to deny the Lewis Libby defense team its request for a large number of highly classified documents (see April 5, 2006). The Sun terms Fitzgerald “breathtakingly arrogant for a prosecutor who has pointedly not limited his charges to the indictment,” and reminds its readers that Fitzgerald told the nation that the Libby perjury case involved “compromising national security information” (see October 28, 2005). [New York Sun, 4/7/2006]

Democratic Representative John Conyers (D-MI) publishes an appeal to the Sunday morning political talk show hosts, including the hosts of “Meet the Press”, “Face the Nation”, “This Week”, and “Fox News Sunday”, to ask for answers to the questions surrounding the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak and the “distortions and cherry picking of information” that provided much of the Bush administration’s justification for the invasion of Iraq. Conyers writes that he is doing what he can to compel truth and honesty from the White House: “I have a choice. I can either stand by and lead my constituents to believe I do not care that the president apparently no longer believes he is bound by any law or code of decency. Or I can act.” Conyers, along with several Democratic colleagues, has written a letter to President Bush asking for the truth behind the Iraq intelligence manipulation and the Plame Wilson leak (see July 14, 2003), even though, as Conyers writes, “[w]e know he is unlikely to write us back.” Conyers implores the hosts of the Sunday talk shows—NBC’s Tim Russert, CBS’s Bob Schieffer, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, “and even” Fox News’s Chris Wallace—for their assistance. “[Y]ou have the power to get some answers this weekend,” he writes. “Will you? Will you find out why the president thinks leaks that hurt his case for war or reveal a massive domestic spying operation are treasonous, but leaks that appear to support his policy positions are appropriate?… Will you find out what other leaks were officially sanctioned? Did the president or vice president authorize the leaking of information that [former] ambassador [Joseph] Wilson’s wife was an undercover CIA operative?” [Huffington Post, 4/7/2006]

Former prosecutor Joseph diGenova, a veteran Washington attorney with deep Republican ties, says he believes President Bush will pardon former White House official Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005). “I can’t imagine this case going to trial,” diGenova says. “You’ll see a pardon first.” [Los Angeles Times, 4/9/2006] DiGenova has previously stated that he believes no crime was committed by leaking Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA identity to the public, in part because her identity was “well known” (see February 10, 2004).

Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega addresses the claim that a president has the unilateral right to declassify information, in light of recent evidence that shows President Bush authorized the declassification of portions of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) for political purposes (see April 5, 2006 and April 9, 2006). De la Vega notes that when Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney declassified portions of the NIE to discredit war critic Joseph Wilson, Bush had officially begun his presidential re-election campaign, having already participated in fundraisers that had netted the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign over $10 million, and was working to raise almost $200 million more. Moreover, Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby, misrepresented the NIE’s findings by telling reporter Judith Miller, falsely, that the NIE proved Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). De la Vega writes: “Is a president, on the eve of his reelection campaign, legally entitled to ward off political embarrassment and conceal past failures in the exercise of his office by unilaterally and informally declassifying selected—as well as false and misleading—portions of a classified National Intelligence Estimate that he has previously refused to declassify, in order to cause such information to be secretly disclosed under false pretenses in the name of a ‘former Hill staffer’ [Libby] to a single reporter, intending that reporter to publish such false and misleading information in a prominent national newspaper? The answer is obvious: No. Such a misuse of authority is the very essence of a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States. It is also precisely the abuse of executive power that led to the impeachment of Richard M. Nixon” (see July 27, 1974, July 29, 1974, and July 30, 1974). [TomDispatch (.com), 4/9/2006]

On Fox News, neoconservative spokesman William Kristol accuses special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald of attempting to besmirch and discredit the White House. Kristol says: “The [Valerie Plame Wilson] leak story is absurd, but I now think the whole prosecution is absurd. I now think it’s a politically motivated attempt to wound the Bush administration.… He is now out to discredit the Bush administration.” [Jane Hamsher, 4/9/2006]

At a speech before an audience of students at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, President Bush attempts to dodge a question from a student about special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s assertion that Bush’s White House had sought to retaliate against former ambassador Joseph Wilson (see April 5, 2006). The New York Times observes: “Mr. Bush stumbled as he began his response before settling on an answer that sidestepped the question. He said he had ordered the formal declassification of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in July 2003 because ‘it was important for people to get a better sense for why I was saying what I was saying in my speeches’ about Iraq’s efforts to reconstitute its weapons program. Mr. Bush said nothing about the earlier, informal authorization that Mr. Fitzgerald’s court filing revealed.” Bush concludes: “You’re just going to have to let Mr. Fitzgerald complete his case, and I hope you understand that. It’s a serious legal matter that we’ve got to be careful in making public statements about it.” [New York Times, 4/11/2006]

The Chicago Tribune editorial staff pens an op-ed calling on Vice President Dick Cheney to answer for his role in “the surreptitious disclosure of classified information related to the war in Iraq,” and, it adds, “not in the friendly venue of Fox News.” The editorial is apparently sparked by recent information from special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald that shows Cheney and President Bush deliberately released selected classified information to manipulate public perceptions about the war (see April 5, 2006, and April 9, 2006). The Tribune says that Cheney should hold “an unscripted news conference in which the vice president confronts all the questions that have been raised,” and notes, “For him to remain silent amid the current turmoil suggests that he—or the president—has something to hide.” [Chicago Tribune, 4/11/2006]

A former senior government official says that President Bush’s selective declassification of portions of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE—see October 1, 2002) for political purposes (see April 5, 2006), as testified to by Lewis Libby (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), was a misuse of the classification process for political reasons. Bush and his top officials released certain sections of the NIE to journalists (see 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003) in an attempt to bolster their arguments in favor of invading Iraq, yet concealed other sections that showed how they misrepresented intelligence to suit their arguments. The former senior official says that the selective declassification was intertwined with the attempts to besmirch the reputation of war critic Joseph Wilson: “It was part and parcel of the same effort, but people don’t see it in that context yet.” The identify of the official is unstated. [National Journal, 4/6/2006] In 2007, Wilson’s wife, current senior CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson, will write that she experiences “a rush of relief” upon reading a New York Times story that reveals the “selective declassification” and the Times’s conclusion that “[i]t is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to punish Wilson” (see April 5, 2006). [Wilson, 2007, pp. 244]

Lewis Libby’s defense team files a response to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s rejection of its demands for more classified documents (see April 5, 2006). Defense Lawyers Intend to Subpoena Wilson, White House Officials - In the filing, Libby’s lawyers indicate that they intend to call for testimony a number of people involved in the Plame Wilson leak, including former ambassador Joseph Wilson (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002 and July 6, 2003), White House political strategist Karl Rove (see July 8, 2003, July 8 or 9, 2003, and 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003), State Department official Marc Grossman (see June 10, 2003), former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer (see July 7, 2003, 8:00 a.m. July 11, 2003, and 1:26 p.m. July 12, 2003), and former CIA Director George Tenet (see June 11 or 12, 2003, July 11, 2003 and 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003). The defense would consider Wilson a “hostile witness” if they indeed subpoena his testimony. Many of these potential witnesses were also disclosed by the Libby team a month earlier (see March 17, 2006). Limiting Document Requests - The defense also agrees to limit its future document requests “to documents that are currently in the actual possession of the OSC [Office of Special Counsel] or which the OSC knows to exist.” Libby Claims No Memory of Key Conversation - Libby’s lawyers also assert that Libby remembers nothing of conversations he had with Grossman, in which Grossman has testified that he told Libby of Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA status (see May 29, 2003, June 10, 2003, 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003, and October 17, 2003). [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/12/2006 ; Truthout (.org), 4/14/2006] However, sources close to the case say that “a half-dozen witnesses” have testified as to the accuracy of Grossman’s claims. A former State Department colleague of Grossman’s says: “It’s not just Mr. Grossman’s word against Mr. Libby’s. There were other people present at the meeting at the time when Mr. Grossman provided Mr. Libby with details about Ms. Plame’s employment with the agency. There is an abundance of evidence Mr. Fitzgerald has that will prove this.” Investigative reporter Jason Leopold observes: “The meeting between Libby and Grossman is a crucial part of the government’s case against Libby. It demonstrates that Libby knew about Plame Wilson a month or so before her name was published in a newspaper column and proves that Libby lied to the grand jury when he testified that he found out about Plame Wilson from reporters in July 2003.” [Truthout (.org), 4/14/2006]

The Washington Post publishes a report that reveals special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald corrected an earlier statement he made in an April 11, 2006 court filing. On April 5, 2006, Fitzgerald wrote that indicted felon and former White House aide Lewis Libby had, during his conversations with New York Times reporter Judith Miller (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003), misrepresented the significance placed by the CIA on allegations that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger. According to Fitzgerald’s original filing, Libby called the CIA finding a “key judgment” from the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (see October 1, 2002). The term “key judgment” indicates that the entire US intelligence community concurred with the finding. The assertion was not part of the NIE’s “key judgments,” and was found later in the document. Yesterday, Fitzgerald wrote to Judge Reggie Walton that he wanted to “correct” the sentence that dealt with the issue. That sentence said Libby “was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.” Instead, the sentence should have conveyed that Libby was to tell Miller some of the key judgments of the NIE “and that the NIE stated that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.” [Washington Post, 4/12/2006] Post reporter Dafna Linzer does not reveal that her knowledge of the Fitzgerald correction comes from information improperly leaked by Libby’s defense lawyers (see April 21, 2006). A column attacking Fitzgerald, written by Byron York and published by the National Review, is also based on the information leaked by Libby’s lawyers, as is a news report by the New York Sun’s Josh Gerstein. [New York Sun, 4/12/2006; National Review, 4/13/2006; Jane Hamsher, 4/21/2006]

Lawyers for indicted White House official Lewis “Scooter” Libby tell reporters that their client did not testify that either President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney authorized him to disclose the identify of then-CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to reporters. After recent court filings by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald revealed that Libby had testified about being authorized to disclose classified information to reporters by Bush and Cheney (see April 5, 2006), many reporters, pundits, and Internet bloggers have speculated that Libby was authorized by Bush and Cheney to reveal Plame Wilson’s identity. Libby’s lawyers say he never mentioned Plame Wilson’s name in conversations with reporters, and therefore never took part in a campaign to besmirch the reputation of her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). The assertion is contradicted by several reporters (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Fitzgerald has asserted that Libby revealed Plame Wilson’s identity as a covert CIA agent in order to allege that she sent her husband to Niger to debunk the tales of Iraqi attempts to buy Nigerien uranium “on account of nepotism” (see April 5, 2006). [Washington Post, 4/13/2006]

Judge Reggie Walton threatens to issue a gag order regarding any further material given to the court for the Lewis Libby trial. He warns that lawyers involved in the trial—he does not name which lawyers—have “repeatedly” given information to the press involving material not yet made public. “This court has previously cautioned the parties about making extrajudicial statements and warned that the court would not tolerate this case being tried in the media,” Walton writes. “Despite this court’s prior admonition, it appears that on several occasions information has been disseminated to the press by counsel, which has included not only public statements, but also the dissemination of material that had not been filed on the public docket. The dissemination of such statements and material undoubtedly has the potential to ‘interfere with a fair trial or otherwise prejudice the due administration of justice.’” Criminal defense lawyer Jeralyn Merritt, who covers the Libby case closely on the progressive blog TalkLeft, writes, “I assume this has to do with the [press] writing about Fitzgerald’s letter of correction the night before it was filed” (see April 5, 2006). Merritt adds: “For the record, I have had no contact whatsoever with the Libby defense team or anyone connected to the case or the investigation. When I wrote about the correction letter, my source was the Washington Post.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/13/2006 ; Jeralyn Merritt, 4/13/2006] Eight days later, the Libby lawyers will admit to leaking information to the press (see April 21, 2006).

A news article by the New York Sun claims that a June 2003 memo from then-Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman never indicated that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA official, or that her status was classified in any way (see June 10, 2003 and July 20, 2005). (Contrary to the Sun’s reporting, Plame Wilson was a NOC—a “non-official cover” agent—the most covert of CIA officials; see Fall 1992 - 1996, July 22, 2003, and September 30, 2003). The Sun bases its report on a declassified version of a memo provided to it through the Freedom of Information Act. The memo was drafted by the State Department’s head of its intelligence bureau, Carl Ford Jr., in response to inquiries by Grossman. Grossman sent the memo to various White House officials, including the then-chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, Lewis Libby. Previous news reports have indicated that the memo was notated to indicate that the information it contained was classified and should not be made public, but according to the Sun, the paragraph identifying Plame Wilson as a CIA official was not designated as secret, while the other paragraphs were. Robert Luskin, the lawyer for White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, says the memo proves that neither Libby, Rove, nor any other White House official broke any laws in revealing Plame Wilson’s CIA status. The Sun also asserts that the memo proves Plame Wilson was responsible for sending her husband, Joseph Wilson, to Niger to find the truth behind claims that Iraq was trying to clandestinely purchase Nigerien uranium, an assertion Wilson calls “absolutely inaccurate” (see February 19, 2002, July 22, 2003, October 17, 2003, and July 20, 2005). [New York Sun, 4/17/2006] The CIA requested that Plame Wilson’s identity not be divulged (see (July 11, 2003) and
Before July 14, 2003), and the agency as well as former officials have acknowledged that the damage done by the disclosure of Plame Wilson’s covert CIA status was “severe” (see Before September 16, 2003, October 3, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, October 23-24, 2003, October 29, 2005, and February 13, 2006).

Slate reporter John Dickerson, who, as a member of the White House press corps, was cozened by the White House to join in its smear campaign against war critic Joseph Wilson (see July 11, 2003), tells his readers to donate to the Lewis Libby legal defense fund. Libby is facing perjury and obstruction charges over his participation in the White House-orchestrated exposure of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. Dickerson claims that his solicitation for donations for Libby is motivated by a desire for the truth to come out about the White House’s involvement in the Wilson smear campaign and the Plame Wilson exposure, writing: “Usually the public has to wait for the tell-all books published after a president leaves office for juicy depictions of the infighting, back-stabbing, and pettiness. But Libby’s trial, which starts in January, will offer a sneak preview. There will be memos and meeting notes about the most secret administration activities. And since the testimony from current and former Bush officials will be under oath, it’s likely to be closer to the truth than anything we’d ultimately find at the bookstore. The Bush administration has been so opaque and has dissembled so often that we should embrace anything that forces candor about the past or encourages it in the present.” Moreover, Dickerson writes, “Libby might need a hefty defense fund if the administration decides to throw him under the bus,” and notes, “If things had not gone a certain way for John Dickerson, he could have needed a fund, too” (see February 7, 2006). Dickerson writes that special counsel and government prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is not, as yet, being particularly forthcoming about the evidence he is collecting as part of his upcoming prosecution of Libby. To adequately mount his defense, Libby needs more access to Fitzgerald’s documents than he has previously been granted, and is battling in court to convince Judge Reggie Walton to force the disclosure of a wide array of government documents, many of which are classified. Dickerson writes: “I hope Libby wins this battle. The more we know about what went on before and after the invasion of Iraq, the better. And we want to see it now, while everyone’s memory is fresh and people can be put under oath.… The better job Libby’s defense team does compelling Fitzgerald to open his files, the better we’ll understand what went wrong.” [Slate, 4/17/2006]

Lawyers for NBC News, the New York Times, Time magazine, and Time reporter Matt Cooper file motions to quash the Lewis Libby defense team’s subpoenas (see March 14, 2006). Lawyers for the Times argue that the newspaper “has a substantial First Amendment interest, and common law qualified privilege against compelled production of unpublished information of the kind sought by Libby.” Time magazine notes Libby’s argument that since he believed Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA identity was well known within the Washington press corps, he needs to show that her employment was discussed by reporters in June and July 2003, when he was meeting with reporters. Time says that the Libby argument should not allow his lawyers to conduct a broad search for potentially helpful evidence. “Although Mr. Libby has claimed a right to know what information the press corps in general possessed concerning Mrs. Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA, under that theory he would be entitled to subpoena all reporters in Washington to learn what they knew, and when they knew it,” Time argues in its motion. “There is no stopping point to this approach.” Other lawyers for the news organizations call the Libby subpoenas “fishing expeditions.” NBC News argues that it has no documents that show that any network employee, including reporters Andrea Mitchell and Tim Russert, knew that Plame Wilson was employed by the CIA before her public exposure (see July 14, 2003). Through his lawyers, Cooper argues that the subpoena from Libby is “materially the same as the subpoena issued to Time Inc.” by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, and is “overbroad, unreasonable, and burdensome… and seeks information protected by the reporter’s privilege that exists under the First Amendment.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/18/2006 ; New York Times, 4/19/2006; Washington Post, 4/19/2006]

The Washington Post acknowledges that it has recently turned over notes and materials to the Lewis Libby defense team in response to a subpoena it had received (see March 14, 2006). In a statement, the Post says it has turned over “the complete version of [reporter] Bob Woodward’s memo of his interview with Mr. Libby on June 27, 2003 (see June 27, 2003). This action did not pose legal or journalistic concerns to the Post or Mr. Woodward.” [New York Times, 4/19/2006]

White House press secretary Scott McClellan, who has faced an increasingly disbelieving and hostile Washington press corp in his role as Bush administration spokesman in handling the Plame Wilson identity leak (see July 11, 2005), announces his upcoming resignation. Possible successors include Fox News commentator Tony Snow, former Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, and Dan Senor, a former coalition spokesman after the invasion of Iraq, though Clarke says she is not interested in the job. President Bush says McClellan has had “a challenging assignment.” He adds: “I thought he handled his assignment with class, integrity. It’s going to be hard to replace Scott, but nevertheless he made the decision and I accepted it. One of these days, he and I are going to be rocking in chairs in Texas and talking about the good old days.” McClellan tells reporters that he has been considering leaving for weeks, ever since chief of staff Andrew Card announced his own resignation. “With a new chief of staff coming on board,” McClellan says, “it was a good time to make this decision. And three years would have been an awfully long time in this position. I’ve been at this for a long time and I didn’t need much encouragement to make this decision, even though you all [reporters] kept tempting me.” [MSNBC, 4/20/2006; New York Times, 4/20/2006] Neither Bush nor McClellan tell the press that McClellan did not decide on his own to leave, but was asked to resign by Card’s successor, Joshua Bolten. In his 2008 book What Happened, McClellan will write that he had indeed considered leaving his position, perhaps by July 15, 2006, but was taken aback when Bolten informed him the week before that he had made the decision for him to leave. “[T]his is a White House that is severely crippled and in need of change,” Bolten told McClellan. “One area that I have decided needs to change is your position.” McClellan will write that his first, emotional response was, “He’s ready to throw me to the wolves,” but rationally, he understands that Bolten is just making a decision he feels he needs to make. “I had been on the defensive too often since the Rove revelations in July” (see July 10, 2005 and July 10, 2005), McClellan will write. “A press secretary cannot survive for long under such circumstances.” McClellan will add that when he discusses his upcoming resignation with Bush, the president seems regretful that he is leaving, but McClellan is not entirely convinced of Bush’s sincerity, even when Bush tears up during their brief conversation. [McClellan, 2008, pp. 298-301]

Progressive columnist, author, and blogger Arianna Huffington writes that the recent motions by the New York Times, Time magazine, and other news organizations to quash subpoenas issued by the Lewis Libby defense team (see April 18, 2006) raise more questions than the organizations may be willing to answer. Huffington says that lawyers for the New York Times and its reporter Judith Miller are correct in calling Libby’s subpoenas a “fishing expedition” and accusing the lawyers of casting an overly “wide net.” However, the Times motion, in conjunction with the original Libby subpoena (see March 14, 2006), reveals that Libby’s lawyers want to know more about the situation surrounding Miller’s July 2003 conversation with Libby, in which he divulged classified information to her in order to influence her reporting on Iraq (see 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003). Specifically, Libby’s lawyers, as well as Huffington and others, want to know if Miller proposed writing a story based on Libby’s disclosures. As Huffington writes: “If she did pitch the story, which Times editor did she pitch it to? What was their reaction? Why did no story result? Had the editors become so suspect of Miller’s sources and reporting that they refused to sign off on the story? Was she officially barred from writing about Iraq/WMD?” Huffington observes that it is obvious the Libby team intends to impugn Miller’s integrity as a journalist, and writes that such a defense tactic “mak[es] it all the more important for the paper to stop operating behind a veil of secrecy when it comes to Miller.” Huffington also notes that Miller has spoken to Times in-house lawyer George Freeman and to Vanity Fair reporter Marie Brenner about Valerie Plame Wilson; Brenner wrote an article saying that Miller had talked to numerous government officials about Plame Wilson’s identity both before and after her outing by columnist Robert Novak (see July 14, 2003). [Huffington Post, 4/20/2006] Lawyer Jeralyn Merritt, writing for the progressive legal blog TalkLeft, notes that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is likely very interested in determining which government officials Miller may have spoken to about Plame Wilson, but goes on to write that Miller may have already disclosed that information to Fitzgerald. [Jeralyn Merritt, 4/20/2006]

According to the White House, deputy chief of staff Karl Rove gives up his day-to-day control over the Bush administration’s domestic policy in order to concentrate on the upcoming midterm elections. The announcement comes on the same day as press secretary Scott McClellan’s resignation announcement (see April 20, 2006). Many observers believe that the internal shakeup has something to do with the ongoing Plame Wilson identity leak investigation, and the upcoming trial of former White House aide Lewis Libby (see January 16-23, 2007). The shakeup is being handled by White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten, himself a recent replacement for the departed Andrew Card. Rove will retain his title and his position as President Bush’s senior adviser. “The president and the new chief of staff said they wanted me focused on the big strategic issues facing the administration,” Rove says. Rove’s domestic policy duties will be assumed by Joel Kaplan, the White House’s deputy budget director. Rove’s recent mishandling of the White House’s failed attempt to “sell” the privatization of Social Security to Congress and the citizenry is also a factor in his reassignment, observers note, as well as his poor handling of the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina and the failed attempt to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws. Some Congressional Republicans believe Rove has too much influence within the White House, and is being distracted by the Plame Wilson investigation. The director of American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, James Thurber, says: “Karl Rove is a great guy in terms of developing issues for a campaign, but he’s not done well on advocating policy in a governance setting. The job is diminished, but he probably doesn’t mind that. He’s a racehorse in a campaign.” White House communications director Nicolle Wallace says Rove’s reassignment takes the White House back to its successful personnel strategy from the first Bush term: “We’re returning to the structure we had at the beginning of the first term. All that changes is that the management of the day-to-day policy process will be put under Joel. Karl will keep the high-yield strategic role that he’s always had.” But former Republican House member Vin Weber, a lobbyist who is close to the White House, says that Rove’s role in the White House will change little, and that the reassignment is largely cosmetic. “The notion that this is a demotion just doesn’t ring true to me,” Weber says. “He’s been the guy who wrote his own job description pretty much. I think that is still more true than less true.” Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) applauds the change, saying: “The White House has never separated politics from policy and that’s been one of the reasons for its undoing. Late is better than never, but the key for the White House will be getting a new person in charge of policy independent from Karl Rove who understands that policy is not simply politics.” Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean calls Rove’s reassignment a “demotion,” and says Bush should have fired Rove over his role in the Plame Wilson identity leak (see July 10, 2005). [New York Times, 4/20/2006]

William Jeffress, one of Libby’s lawyers. [Source: Life]The legal team for accused felon Lewis Libby admits to twice leaking information to the media (see April 12, 2006). The admissions are included in a filing submitted by Libby’s lawyers in response to Judge Reggie Walton’s threat to issue a gag order (see April 13, 2006). The threatened gag order was in response to multiple press leaks emanating from “unnamed sources” involved in the Libby trial. Libby’s lawyers oppose the proposed gag order, which would dramatically curtail the lawyers’ ability to speak to reporters about the legal proceedings; special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald says he has no opinion on a gag order because his office does not talk to the media anyway. Libby’s lawyers acknowledge leaking two documents: Fitzgerald’s “correction” letter to an earlier statement implying that Libby had mischaracterized some of the elements of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (see October 1, 2002) to reporter Judith Miller, and information given to a Washington Post reporter to correct what lawyer William Jeffress believed was a misunderstanding on that reporter’s part that might have resulted in erroneous information being reported. First Leak - Libby’s lawyers say they released the Fitzgerald letter to the press “in good faith,” and do not believe the release goes against the court’s earlier restrictions on making information public. They write: “When we received the letter, we assumed that the government wanted to correct the public record. We thought the government was motivated to file the letter because the government had realized that the erroneous sentence in its brief was responsible for spawning false news reports and wholly unjustified conjecture about possible misdeeds by Mr. Libby and his superiors. Nothing about the letter indicated that it was not to be disclosed publicly. It was not designated as confidential under the protective order in this case, and it did not contain any
classified information.… When we received the letter, we simply assumed that it was a public filing that was intended to be entered in the public docket, because we believed its sole purpose was to correct inaccurate statements in a publicly filed brief. Accordingly, we swiftly disseminated it to the media—without any public statements by defense counsel—for the purpose of preventing the publication of any additional incorrect reports that Mr. Libby, the president, and/or the vice president had lied to the press and the public.” The lawyers deny releasing the letter for any “tactical advantage or for any other improper purpose.” Second Leak - Jeffress spoke with one of two Washington Post reporters, R. Jeffrey Smith or Jim VandeHei. The reporter apparently misunderstood the content of an argument in an earlier legal brief, and called Libby’s legal team to discuss the brief. The reporter intended to file a report showing that Fitzgerald’s evidence undermined Libby’s contention that no one in the Bush White House was overly concerned with the criticisms of former ambassador Joseph Wilson (see June 2003, June 3, 2003, June 11, 2003, June 12, 2003, June 19 or 20, 2003, July 6, 2003, July 6-10, 2003, July 7, 2003 or Shortly After, 8:45 a.m. July 7, 2003, 9:22 a.m. July 7, 2003, July 7-8, 2003, July 11, 2003, (July 11, 2003), July 12, 2003, July 12, 2003, July 18, 2003, October 1, 2003, April 5, 2006, and April 9, 2006). Jeffress’s intent, he tells Judge Walton, was merely to ensure that the Post published an accurate news report that did not misconstrue the legal brief. Again, Jeffress says that he intended to gain no “tactical advantage” or “to interfere with a fair trial or otherwise prejudice the due administration of justice.” He was, he asserts, merely concerned that such an inaccurate report “would have been unfairly prejudicial to Mr. Libby.” Convincing Arguments? - Criminal lawyer Jeralyn Merritt, writing for the blog TalkLeft, says that she finds the rationales for the two leaks convincing, and doubts that Judge Walton will issue any gag order. [Jeralyn Merritt, 4/21/2006; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/21/2006 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/21/2006 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 4/21/2006 ]Not the Only Press Leaks? - Author and blogger Marcy Wheeler, who has covered the trial since before it started, contends that Libby’s team is trying to imply that these two leaks are the only ones it has made. She strongly disagrees with this implication, and says that while there is no way to know what, if any, information the Libby team has leaked to the press besides these two incidents, the entire trial is about carefully orchestrated press leaks and Libby’s perjury about said leaks, and says she doubts the Libby team’s contention that they have not leaked other information to any members of the press. [Marcy Wheeler, 4/22/2006]

CBS’s 60 Minutes airs a half-hour interview with Italian journalist Elisabetta Burba, the first reporter to obtain the now-infamous forged documents that purported to show that Iraq attempted to buy uranium from Niger (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, Late September 2001-Early October 2001, October 15, 2001, December 2001, February 5, 2002, February 12, 2002, October 9, 2002, October 15, 2002, January 2003, February 17, 2003, March 7, 2003, March 8, 2003, and 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003). The now-defunct 60 Minutes II had planned to show the segment just before the November 2004 elections, but questions from right-wing bloggers and commentators about another 60 Minutes II segment—one that showed President Bush did not fulfill his Texas Air National Guard duties during the Vietnam War—led CBS executives to pull the segment (see Late September 2004). [Newsweek, 9/23/2004; Rich, 2006, pp. 142-143; CBS News, 4/23/2006] CBS News president Andrew Heyward refused to air the story during the last week of September 2004, saying it would be “inappropriate” to air it during the last weeks of the 2004 presidential election campaign. Media observer Mary Jacoby says the CBS report contains little new information, but “is powerfully, coherently, and credibly reported.” She calls CBS “cowardly” for not airing the segment when it was originally scheduled. [Salon, 9/29/2004] Author Jane Hamsher, the owner of the progressive blog FireDogLake, writes that the 60 Minutes segment is “a simple, direct narrative that will reach millions of Americans and let them know that they have been duped.” The segment does not delve into the outing of CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson, staying strictly with the Iraq-Niger uranium claims, and, she writes, demonstrates that the officially sanctioned “investigations” into the claims were little more than “partisan hatchet jobs.” [Jane Hamsher, 4/23/2006]

Judge Reggie Walton refuses to dismiss felony perjury and obstruction charges against former White House official Lewis Libby. Walton turns down a bid by Libby’s defense lawyers to have the charges dismissed on the grounds that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald lacks the constitutional authority to bring any such charges (see March 31, 2006). Walton writes that he does not need to “look far” in the law to reject the claim, and affirms that the attorney general can indeed delegate his functions, as was done in the Fitzgerald appointment (see December 30, 2003). “There was no wholesale abdication of the attorney general’s duty to direct and supervise litigation,” he writes. “This case provides the clearest example of why such broad discretion is necessary,” Walton notes. “Here, the attorney general [John Ashcroft] believed there was a conflict of interest.… It was, therefore, entirely appropriate for the attorney general to remove himself completely from the investigation.” [Associated Press, 4/26/2006]

Karl Rove discusses his testimony with his lawyers outside the grand jury chambers. [Source: CNN / ThinkProgress]White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove testifies before special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury for a fifth time. Rove partially waives his attorney-client privilege with his attorney, Robert Luskin, to allow Luskin to testify about conversations he had with Rove concerning Rove’s knowledge of the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity. Rove is also questioned extensively about the contradictions between his previous testimony and the testimony of Time reporter Matthew Cooper regarding Rove and Cooper’s July 2003 conversation about Plame Wilson (see 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003), and his conversations with conservative columnist Robert Novak (see July 8, 2003, July 8 or 9, 2003, and July 14, 2003). [Washington Post, 4/27/2006; National Journal, 4/28/2006; Washington Post, 7/3/2007] According to Luskin, Rove “indirectly” confirmed Plame Wilson’s CIA status to Novak. [Washington Post, 7/15/2006]Changing Stories - Rove is asked how he learned of Plame Wilson’s CIA status, and the circumstances surrounding his leaking of that information to Cooper. Rove tells the jury that when he told Cooper that Plame Wilson was a CIA agent, he was merely passing along unverified gossip. Cooper has testified that Rove told him that Plame Wilson was a CIA agent, and that she played a role in sending her husband, Joseph Wilson, on a fact-finding mission to Niger in 2002 (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). Cooper has testified that both Rove and Lewis Libby, the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, portrayed the information about Plame Wilson as definitive. It was because of their definitive statements, Cooper testified, that he identified Plame Wilson in a July 2003 story for Time (see July 17, 2003). In his first interview by the FBI, Rove failed to tell the investigators that he had talked to Cooper at all (see October 8, 2003); he again failed to disclose the conversation during his early appearances before the grand jury (see February 2004). Later, Rove testified that he did indeed speak with Cooper, and that his earlier failures to disclose the information were due to lapses in his memory (see October 15, 2004). In his fourth appearance before the grand jury, Rove testified that he revealed Plame Wilson’s identity to the reporter (see October 14, 2005), a recollection prompted by the discovery of an e-mail Rove sent to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley soon after his leak to Cooper (see March 1, 2004). Rove has also testified that he learned of Plame Wilson’s CIA status from a journalist or journalists, a claim strongly contradicted by evidence. He has said in previous testimony that he may have learned of Plame Wilson’s identity from Novak, who outed Plame Wilson in a July 2003 column (see July 14, 2003). Novak, however, has testified that he learned of Plame Wilson’s identity from Libby and Rove. A person with first-hand knowledge of the grand jury proceedings will later comment, “If you believe both of them, Novak was saying that Rove was his source, and Rove was saying that Novak was his source.” [Washington Post, 4/27/2006; National Journal, 4/28/2006] Rove says that he still doesn’t remember talking to Cooper, though he does not dispute the e-mail he sent to Hadley. [Bloomberg, 4/28/2006] He argues that it would have been foolish for him to attempt to lie to the FBI and to the grand jury, because he knew that whatever lies he might have chosen to tell would have eventually been exposed, and he would then risk going to jail. [Washington Post, 4/27/2006] It is difficult to reconcile Rove’s “indirect” confirmation of Plame Wilson’s identity for Novak with his earlier claims that he learned of Plame Wilson’s CIA status from Novak. Lawyer's Statement - Rove’s lawyer Robert Luskin says in a written statement: “Karl Rove appeared today before the grand jury investigating the disclosure of a CIA agent’s identity. He testified voluntarily and unconditionally at the request of special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to explore a matter raised since Mr. Rove’s last appearance in October 2005 (see October 14, 2005). In connection with this appearance, the special counsel has advised Mr. Rove that he is not a target of the investigation. Mr. Fitzgerald has affirmed that he has made no decision concerning charges. At the request of the special counsel, Mr. Rove will not discuss the substance of his testimony.” [CNN, 4/26/2006; Washington Post, 4/27/2006]Difficulties in Proving Intent - Law professor and former federal prosecutor Dan Richman says that while Fitzgerald may well be trying to build a case against Rove for either perjury or obstruction of justice, it may be quite difficult to prove Rove intended to lie to the grand jury. Rove’s subsequent appearances before the jury might “prove to be an obstacle to any [potential] obstruction or perjury case in that the person ultimately cooperated and told what he knew,” Richman says. [National Journal, 4/28/2006]

Judge Thomas Hogan, who jailed former New York Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to name her source during the Plame Wilson identity leak investigation (see October 7, 2004), defends his decision during a meeting of the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association. Hogan, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan, is the chief judge for the Washington, DC, District Court. He tells the collected listeners that Miller had no First Amendment right to protect a source in a criminal matter. While the story began as a political ruckus, Hogan says, it quickly escalated into something more than merely politics. Between the politics of the case, the media involvement, and the legal ramifications, it became “the perfect storm,” he adds. War critic Joseph Wilson became a target of the White House. “Blood was spreading in the water. The sharks were gathering. It’s typical Washington politics, except that this involved the commission of a crime.” Hogan is referring to the public exposure of covert CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson after the White House leaked her identity to the press (see July 14, 2003). Hogan says of Miller: “She was an actor in the commission of a crime. She was part of the transfer of information that was a crime.” [Associated Press, 4/29/2006]

Lewis Libby’s defense team files a motion to compel the testimonies of several reporters and news organizations whom it has already subpoenaed (see March 14, 2006). The New York Times, NBC News, Time magazine, and reporters Judith Miller, Matthew Cooper, and Andrea Mitchell have already filed motions to quash the Libby subpoenas (see April 18, 2006). Libby’s lawyers argue that the subpoenas are legal and just, and Libby has a right to compel the subpoenaed testimonies. According to the lawyers’ brief, reporters have “no right—under the Constitution or the common law—to deprive Mr. Libby of evidence that will help establish his innocence at trial.” In return, lawyers for the various press outlets say that Libby’s subpoenas are so broad that they threaten the integrity of their news gathering operations by targeting all of their employees, not just the three reporters involved in the case. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 5/1/2006 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 5/1/2006 ; Associated Press, 5/2/2006] Author and blogger Marcy Wheeler writes that while the Libby team’s arguments about Cooper and Mitchell are strong, the arguments in regards to Miller are something else entirely. Wheeler accuses Libby, through his lawyers, of “totally mischaracterizing the nature of the lie he is accused of telling to” Miller during their meetings (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). She says that in her view, Miller repeatedly hedged her grand jury testimony (see September 30, 2005 and October 12, 2005) to “protect Libby,” but now Libby is using those hedges “to impugn Judy as a witness.” [Marcy Wheeler, 5/2/2006] Author Jane Hamsher and former prosecutor Christy Hardin Smith, writing for the progressive blog FireDogLake, note with some amusement that the Libby lawyers are relying on a new word: “misrecollected,” as in “whether it is Mr. Libby or the reporters who have misstated or misrecollected the facts,” or “it is Mr. Russert who has misrecollected or misstated the facts.” Hamsher and Smith write: “It’s being employed here for the purpose of avoiding an explicit discussion of what they’re really talking about, commingling under its broad tent two distinct activities: the act of remembering an event but failing to recall certain details, which would also be known as ‘forgetting,’ and the act of remembering things that never actually happened, which would be in effect ‘fabricating.’ They seem to be describing the latter while hoping for the more innocent overtones of the former.” [FireDogLake, 5/2/2006]

Judge Reggie Walton refuses to honor a motion filed by the Lewis Libby defense team regarding ex parte judicial review of classified documents. Libby’s lawyers opposed special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s attempt to have Walton review classified government documents without their being present. The procedure Fitzgerald has proposed is the same as mandated by the Classified Information Procedures Act of 1980 (CIPA). Libby’s lawyers wish Fitzgerald to have to apply separately through Walton for each classified document submitted for ex parte review. Walton agrees with Fitzgerald and CIPA. [US law.; Christy Hardin Smith, 5/3/2006]

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